


Pieces of Me, Pieces of You, Pieces of Us

by CatAvalon (CazinaIna)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (Not with Beka/Yuri though dw lads), Anal Fingering, Angst, Blow Jobs, Breaking and Entering, Confessional Sex, Dick Pics, Dildos, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Nipple Piercings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Panty Kink, Phone Sex, Rimming, Sex, Sexting, Smut, Somnophilia, dick piercings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:42:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12903237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CazinaIna/pseuds/CatAvalon
Summary: When Otabek tries to surprise Yuri by coming to St Petersburg, he finds his apartment empty besides some spoilt cats and a scrawled note on the kitchen counter. With nothing better to do, and a non-refundable return ticket, he decides to stay amidst the whirlwind that Yuri's left behind, finding pieces of him in ways he'd never been able to before. Thus ensues a period of self-discovery, self-loathing and some acts that Otabek's far from proud of.





	1. Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neveraines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neveraines/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this fic for five months now. It has taken me completely out of my comfort zone, and has been a struggle but I'm finally there. It's finished, and completely ready to post. 
> 
> I was going to keep it all as one long oneshot- but it's 28k and I wanted to at least give it a chance by chaptering it. 
> 
> So here's chapter one. Chapter two will be uploaded on Wednesday, and chapter three will be uploaded on Friday. Just know that I would have preferred it to all be in one :L 
> 
> I haven't put non/con warnings on this, but it brushes on some delicate themes- so please be aware when reading.
> 
> *
> 
> Reuploaded because somehow Ao3 managed to publish this on the 3rd of December and I kinda want people to see this at the top of the feed xD

It was probably a bad idea to come without calling first. More than  _probably_ , considering now Otabek’s standing in the middle of an apartment block in St Petersburg, carry-on in one hand, with the taste of stale plane air on the roof of his mouth. The other hand rests on a door, with a gold plaque reading 15c, and then just beneath that,  _Plisetsky_.

His knuckles are red from knocking, soft at first, then growing more insistent as minutes passed and the lack of response shadowed his mind him like the first, thick clouds of a thunderstorm.

_Shit_.

There’s a thickness in his throat that doesn’t disappear, no matter how hard he swallows. It’s so unlike him to do something like this, something spur of the moment and unplanned. Everything he does is immaculately calculated, analysed over and over to eradicate any error. In his back pocket, there’s a journal, one in which holds thousands of scribbled notes, lists and charts so he knows exactly what he’s doing at all times.

Except today. All logic flew out the window last night when Yuri had skyped him and complained how bored he was. Even strained through thousands of miles of pixelation, Otabek could see just how beautiful he was, bare legs crossed at the ankle as he lay on his stomach, a shirt so big it slipped off his shoulder and gaped at the front, exposing the elegant curve of his clavicle, the erotic glints of gold that adorned his nipples.  _I’ve got pieces of you pierced through me now,_ he had said with a smirk the first time he’d lifted his shirt to show them off. Otabek had never been harder in his life.

_Book ticket to St Petersburg. See Yuri._

That’s all there is written under today’s date, scrawled in a hand that’s much too messy, holding the secrets he only indulges in when the lights are off but his phone screen is on, open to a photo saved to his camera roll of Yuri innocently drifting across the ice. If only Otabek’s thoughts were just as pure.

_Book ticket to St Petersburg. See Yuri._ Nothing telling him what to do if Yuri wasn’t there. Otabek pulls the journal from his pocket and flips uselessly through the pages, stopping where the words stare back up at him mockingly, glaring down as if they could magically shift and change, forming something more coherent, more logical. Something like  _Ask if I can visit. If yes, look for flights. Ask coach for permission. If coach says no, compromise…_

But nothing changes.  _See Yuri_ is seared into his retinas, and when he blinks up at the door, he can still see it, carved into the wood. Rubbing his eyes, Otabek worries his lip between his teeth. He really needs to do  _something_ ; he can’t just stand here all day, willing an inanimate object to bend to his inner desires. Turning his gaze to the ceiling, he prays to all and any deities to offer him guidance.

And that’s when he sees it, a sliver of silver peeking out over the wood. A spare key. Otabek has to jump for it a little but manages to snag it from it’s hiding spot. The tips of his fingers are dirtied with dust, but nestled in his palm is the answer to all of his problems. At least, the temporary answer. Nothing can change the fact he’s got a non-refundable ticket and he’s stuck in an unfamiliar city where he doesn’t know anyone, not really.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. The sound the key makes turning in the lock raises goosebumps over his skin, and soon his stumbling into darkness, door slamming shut behind him. For a moment Otabek just stands there, breathing deep lungfuls of Yuri’s scent; vanilla air freshener, perfume, the intimate smell of  _him_ that Otabek could recognise anywhere. It’s enough to make him half-hard in his pants, dick throbbing at just the thought of Yuri being nearby.

Fumbling against the wall, he finds the light switch at flicks it on, and is shocked at the sight he’s greeted with. Green eyes blink up at him, pretty mouth parted just so, a tip of a pink tongue lolling out between perfect teeth. Otabek watches as it lazily traces the curve of a lower lip before pulling back in. A baby blue collar- leather, of course- is fastened around a slender neck, clinking slightly as the first step is taken towards him. Long, pale hair shines softly in the light, begging to be touched.

So Otabek does, running his fingers through it until the first gentle rumble of a purr breaks the silence.

Potya flops onto his back, paws curled to his chest as he mewls for attention, very much in the same way his owner would. Setting his bag down, Otabek kneels on the floor and gives the cat his undivided attention, tickling the soft fur behind his ears, scratching at his chin. There’s a jingle from the other side of the apartment, and Mishka, Yuri’s newest feline addition, runs up to see what the commotion is. She’s small, wide-eyed with wonder with the most beautiful ginger coat Otabek’s ever seen. Even though it’s her first time meeting him, Mishka sniffs Otabek’s fingers then rubs herself all over his legs, a purr ripping through her like a chainsaw.

“Hey, girl,” he coos, letting her claw at his jeans with the tiniest of mewls. Her own collar swamps her small form, bright pink with little crowns embroidered in silver thread.  _Because she’s my little princess_ Yuri had said when he had shown him over Skype, but Otabek has been far too busy staring at the enthralling expanse of skin exposed by Yuri’s scanty crop top, all pale creamy skin shifting over taut muscle. Sure, the cat was cute, but Otabek couldn’t take his eyes off a completely different kitten.

Mishka’s halfway up his leg before Otabek finally picks her up, perching her on his shoulder like he’s seen Yuri do so many times before. It’s nice, he admits to himself, having her nuzzle at his throat, the purr vibrating deep into his bones feeling like home, like Yuri throwing himself into his arms and murmuring how much he’s missed him.

Except Yuri’s not here. Yuri’s not here, and Otabek’s standing in the middle of his apartment. Without him knowing. Without permission.

Maybe he should fix that.

Being careful not to trip over Potya, he moves into the kitchen where he knows there’s usually a free plug socket available. His phone had died somewhere over Northern Kazakhstan, and when it sparks to life a few minutes later, his screen is bombarded with messages and missed calls, mostly from his coach.  _Where are you? Why aren’t you at the rink? Altin? Are you sick? If you don’t reply I’m coming to get your ass._

That’s when the calls had started, first from Karim, and then when he’d reached out to his sisters, from Aidana, and eventually Imira.  _Beshka, we’re worried. Please call us as soon as you get this._ A guilt settles in his stomach, churning as he absorbs every word, the increase in capitals and exclamation marks. It’s only when there’s a threat of calling the police does Otabek finally snap out of it, shaking his head, cheek brushing against Mishka’s soft coat.

“What the actual hell, Beks?” Aidana shouts into his ear after he decides she’ll be the most relaxed. “ _Ağa_ is sick with worry! Where are you?”

“Russia.” He can’t lie, can’t hide the shame that colours his voice, so to distract himself his eyes skim his surroundings. The shrivelled core of an apple, withered and wilting in on itself. A half-empty glass of water, a pill bottle, an unopened vitamin sachet. A single, silver spoon balanced precariously on the edge of the sink. Mundane things that are meant to be meaningless but aren’t simply because they hold the imprint of a moment in Yuri’s life.

“Russia,” she parrots back, and yeah, it sounds pretty bad when she says it in that condescending tone only an older sister can muster. “Why, darling brother of mine, are you thousands of miles away in a different fucking continent?”

“I-” But the impact of her words has knocked all the air from his body, and he stands open-mouthed, dragging whatever oxygen he can into his lungs. Why  _is_ he here? Because he certainly can’t confess he hopped on a plane because of twin pieces of gold, for the chance to see them in person, to feel them pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Chasing lust filled fantasies is not something he ever saw himself doing, yet here he is, alone in the darkness the dazzling dream had left him in. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” Again, with the repeating, as if the words coming from his mouth are just that unbelievable. Probably because they are. Mishka leaps from his shoulder onto the countertop, disturbing a stack of papers left haphazardly on the edge.“Beshka, you know are the most meticulous person in the world. There must be a reason you’ve blown off all of your commitments.”

Sighing, he crouches to pick up the pages scattering the floor, several sheets of lined A4 with a familiar scrawl screaming in black biro. A message to someone called Alyona, the name underlined multiple times with increasing thickness. Really, he’s just stalling, trying to think of something, anything, that could explain away his stupidity.

In the end, he doesn’t have to, because Aidana hits the nail right on the head and straight through Otabek’s heart.

“It’s Yuri, isn’t it?” He stiffens, unable to stop the little inhale of breath that whistles through his teeth. “Beks?” A fiery blush consumes his skin, flames licking up his neck, singeing the tips of his ears, scalding every sinew on its way to settle in his cheeks. The heat of it dries up his mouth like the arid plains of the Ryn desert he’s just flown over. “Fine, be like that, but I’m not helping you clean up this mess.”

“Dana-” he manages to choke out, fingers tightening around the phone.

“Just, don’t do anything rash, okay?” She sounds weary, and Otabek can almost hear the soft drooping of her eyelids fluttering closed in exhaustion.  _It’s too late for that_. It was too late, twelve hours ago, when the head in Otabek’s pants deciding to do all his thinking for him.

Before he can say anything else, the line disconnects, and he’s left staring into the apartment, vision swimming, as all of his regrets rush to him in a disorienting blur. Five hours. He had had five hours to think about what he was doing, sat in economy with nothing but his thoughts for company. Five hours to plan, to figure out what he was going to say, to explain his sudden appearance, to smooth things over with everyone at home.

And all he could see was  _See Yuri_.

Yuri isn’t here, though. The reality of that becomes more and more apparent the longer he stands in the silence of his apartment. Yuri isn’t here, but Otabek is. Otabek is here, in St Petersburg, but he isn’t supposed to be, and Yuri is supposed to be and it’s driving him a little bit insane.

Mishka mewls for attention, pattering over the papers he’s just collected and nudging at his elbow. Stupidly, Otabek still has his phone at his ear, so he lowers it belatedly and strokes the stripey fur that runs from Mishka’s forehead and narrows to a point at her tiny, pink nose.

“What should I do, girl?” he asks, but he’s already staring at the notes beneath her feet.

_Alyona,_

_Mishka can’t have kibble by itself, so it needs to be mixed in with some wet food. There’s a half-open tin in the fridge, and more in the cupboard under the sink. Do NOT let Potya have any of it. He’ll whine and cry, but unless you want to deal with the kitty shits you’re just going to have to be stubborn._ (Otabek knows this all too well. One night during their first year of friendship, Yuri had sobbed down the phone, convinced that his beloved cat was dying. After taking him to the vets, it just turned it was a reaction to the fancy cat food he’d bought him.)  _If he gets really bratty, lock him away until Mishka’s done doing her thing. Don’t ‘forget’ about the litter trays again. Please. Don’t. I’m not stupid, Alya. And make sure to give them their milk. They have a routine, and will get fussy if it’s not kept to._ (Otabek thinks this is more because they are spoilt rotten under his affection. He can see the pillow fort he built specifically for them swamping up a corner of the living room from here.)

_Call me straight away if there’s anything wrong. I’ll be gone a few days, four at the max,_  (Four days? Otabek’s return flight is in  _three_ )  _but I’ll come back if I need to_ (And he would. Last year Potya had got sick whilst Yuri was visiting him in Almaty and he had jumped on the next plane to LED)

_I expect pictures at least three times a day_ (a cartoon cat illustrates this point, with wonky ears and whiskers way too long for its face) _._

_Thanks for this, I owe you big time._

_Yuri._

Gone for a few days… but where? Yuri hadn’t mentioned anything last night, hadn’t been in the midst of packing. Maybe it was an emergency. Shit, what if something happened to his grandfather? But Yuri would have told him about that, would have called him, texted him at least. Yet Yuri’s name has sunk low under the sea of concerns from his friends and family, almost swallowed up by the bottom of his screen. Otabek hovers his thumb over their last message.  _Call me, asshole_ , punctuated with a middle finger emoji, sent at 23:33 ALMT.

_Call me_.

So Otabek does, even though the message was meant for another time, another him left hours in the past that had already opened Skype and dialed before a three could flicker to a four. Impatient is the only way he can describe how his foot taps, drumming restless rhythms into the hardwood, how his fingers clench and release at his side, over and over until he has to furrow his fist in his pocket, nails biting waning moons into his flesh. It’s strange, hearing the dial tone for so long. It shrieks in his ear like a banshee, predicting death long before Otabek tastes it on his tongue.

_“Hey, this is Yuri. I’m either busy or ignoring you. Leave a message, and if I don’t get back to you, you know what’s up.”_

_“Hey, this is Yuri. I’m either busy or-”_

No.

_“Hey, this is Yuri. I’m-”_

No, no, no.

_“Hey, this is Yu-”_

“No!” he shouts, flinging the phone away from him. Both of the cats startle, scarpering away deeper into the apartment. “This can’t be happening.”

But it is. The calls keep going through, and the voicemail drives him crazy, and the cold, hard realisation that he’s fucking trespassing feels like ice water in his veins.  _Is he ignoring me?_ his irrational mind asks.  _Have I done something wrong?_ God, what if he’s done something stupid and flown thousands of miles just to discover Yuri doesn’t even want to talk to him anymore.

_Flying here was stupid in the first place,_ he reminds himself, his inner voice sounding bitterly similar to his sister's. Not knowing what to do, he drags his journal from his pocket and collapses onto the kitchen floor. There’s a pen from where Mishka disturbed things earlier, and Otabek rolls it between his fingers.

Fly to St Petersburg. See Yuri.

There are so many strikes through them, the words are indistinguishable. Now he can’t make them out, though, some of the tension lifts from his shoulders. Sighing, Otabek turns to a fresh page- and stares. He doesn’t want to leave, not really, but just sitting here without Yuri knowing is a crime, and Otabek had never wanted to be a lawbreaker. He brings the pen to his lips, tapping. Potya wanders over at his old man’s pace, nudging at his knee.

It’s only when he pushes everything aside for the cat that he sees it. Bite marks, chewed into plastic. Blinking, Otabek picks the pen back up, his other hand absently stroking at Potya’s fur. Not just bite marks, Yuri’s bite marks. He can see it now, plum lips curling around the tip as he contemplatively chews, and God, he’s just held the same pen to his lips. Yuri’s lips and against his, curled around his-

_No. Now’s not the time._

With an iron will, he drags his thoughts away- though, not before wrapping his own mouth around the tip, biting down over the marks Yuri’s already made. Shuddering, he turns his attention back to the blank page.

_Get a taxi. Find an available hotel. Book a room for two nights. Eat. Shower. Sle-_

_Ring._

He’s on his phone in an instant, answering before he can even fathom what to say.

“What the fucking hell, Otabek? Sixteen missed calls?” There’s a lot of background noise, but he can still hear the eye-roll is Yuri’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Where are you?” he asks, no,  _demands_ ,  sounding like an overly jealous boyfriend, and as much as he wants to have the right to, he doesn’t.

“Jesus, calm down,” he laughs, though it sounds strained, nervous. “Just because I don't answer my phone for fifteen minutes, it doesn't mean I'm dead or anything.”

“Yuri,” he pleads,

“I’m in Moscow, not that it's any of your business.”  _Moscow_. Four hours away by high-speed train. If he were that desperate, (which he’s beginning to think he is) he could be there in- “Why, where are you?”

“St Petersburg,” comes his distracted reply. He’s already scribbling a new list:  _get to Moskovskiy station, get a ticket for the Sapsan, board train, see Yuri-_ no, wait he needs to find out where exactly Yuri is first.

“You're in St Petersburg.” Otabek barely registers the tone of disbelief, mind flipping to his bank account, how much is in his spending account, whether he has enough room on his credit card for yet another impromptu journey.

“Yeah, in your apartment.”  _Check bank account_ is added to the list before he realises what he’s just confessed. There’s a sudden whooshing in his ears as the tide comes in and washes his heart up into his throat, spasming like a fish spat onto the shore.

“Oh my God, okay then.”  _Wait, he’s not mad?_ Otabek doesn’t know whether he’s more relieved or confused. “Why? I mean, I don't mind, it would have been nice of you to ask, though, because obviously I'm not there, but there must be a reason, right?”

“I-” There’s no use hiding it. Yuri Plisetsky is a man of many talents: skating, dancing, detecting lies, understanding Otabek. A combination of the latter two creates a deadly concoction that can strip away any mask he wears, any polish he coats his voice with. “I just wanted to see you. I miss you, Yura.”

“Beka…” He could live forever on the way Yuri says his name, rich like velvet with a softness that’s brought out when his tongue strokes the syllables. It’s enough to awaken the dawn of a smile, curving the corners of the straight horizon that’s his mouth. “I’m sorry. Look, you can stay, but I’m kinda tied up right now. I’ll see if I can come back early-”

“No, no, it's my fault. I wanted to surprise you, that’s all.”  _I wanted to see the look on your face, watch it light up, to hear that shocked choke of a laugh that always crinkles your nose when something unexpected happens as you throw yourself into my arms._

Granted, Yuri does laugh, but it’s not the same. Otabek wants to feel it vibrate through his chest, not into his ear through a shitty phone connection. “Well, colour me shocked, then. I never took you as someone who’d be so fucking spontaneous.”

“I'm not.” For these reasons entirely. Because of unpredictable outcomes he can’t foresee, made by a million mistakes and miscalculations. Outcomes like this one, the consequence of reckless thinking,  _wishful_ thinking, thoughts clouded with delirious desire. Now Otabek has to live in the aftermath, a reality in which he’s alone in the little bubble that Yuri calls home, and-

_Knockknockknock_.  _KNOCK_. There’s a pause, and all Otabek can hear is his breathing and Yuri’s, filtered through the speaker so it’s nothing but a mechanical hiss. “Beka?”

At the same time, there’s a muffled call of  _Yuri_ , and another barrage of foot and fist against wood. An upset yowl comes from the tent in the corner, long and low, raising the short hairs on Otabek’s neck.“There's someone at your door.”

“Don’t sound so scared, jeez.” A short stab of a car horn blaring breaks through the speakers, the sharp slur of swearing following it in Yuri’s stereotypical snarl. “Fuck, it’s Alyona. She’s calling me, probably freaking out about the spare key that’s gone missing. That’s how you got in, right?”

“Yeah,” he admits, a bashful heat blooming in his chest, deciding against ever mentioning the fleeting seconds he considered picking the lock.

“Well, answer it, then, asshole. The last thing I need is a foot going through. I’ve only just got the wood repainted.” He’s halfway to objecting, but Yuri’s already cursing under his breath. “Shit, I need to go, but I'll call you later, okay?”

“Wait, Yura-” He hangs up. Of course he hangs up, without saying if Otabek can stay or if he has to go. For a few seconds, he simply stands there, stewing in the silence that Yuri’s voice has left behind, staring at the picture of him on his lock screen.

Then, the banging starts up again, and Potya positively growls from where he’s perched on the back of the sofa, flouncing over the edge, his tail drifting behind him like a plume of smoke. Gritting his teeth, Otabek summons all of his strength to remain calm, no matter how loud the alarm bells still ringing in his mind are.

He’s greeted with hair like candyfloss and a fist flying towards his face. It’s easy to dodge with a quick sidestep, and the stunned look of shock that caverns the girl’s magenta mouth is almost worth the five-hour flight. She snaps her jaw shut with an audible clink of colliding teeth, puckering her lips in a twitching pink pout as her eyes bore into his form.

“Oh, I didn’t know Yuri had got a-” Gasping, she slaps a hand to her cheek before stabbing an accusing finger into his chest. The long, stiletto point of her scarlet nail catches in the woven fabric of his jumper. “Wait, aren’t you the boyfriend?”

_Boyfriend_. Otabek can’t  _breathe_. The idea of Yuri mentioning him as his boyfriend chokes him in a heady way, the way that intensifies pleasure and blocks out everything else.  _Him_. Yuri’s boyfriend.

“O-something, right?” Otabek can only dumbly nod, one hand coming to rest against his ribs in a silent plea for them to start working again. The girl- Alyona, he assumes- taps the same nail that was just in his chest against her canine, deep in thought. “Oleg? Hmmm, no, that’s not it. Orel?”

He might as well put her out of her misery.“It’s-”

“Oskar!”

“Otabek.”

They blink at each other. Alyona runs a hand nervously through her hair, and Otabek tracks the movement, watches the colour shift from pearly pink to the same blushing shade that’s blossomed over her cheeks in the flickering fluorescent lighting. “I’m Otabek.”

The silence that bleeds between them is filled only by the throb of his heart, heavy in his ears, beating  _boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend_ until the thought consumes him. Yuri with a boyfriend. Yuri with a boyfriend that isn’t him.  _Oskar_. The name is bitter on the tip of his tongue, and Otabek wants to spit it away like the  _poison_ it is.

“As in  _Beka_ , Otabek?” That snaps him out of it, for a moment at least. A light shudder shakes at his bones, both of his hands curling into fists. He manages a curt nod, looking over the top of Alyona’s head and down the corridor. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

“Have you?” he seethes through gritted teeth, the bland beige of the walls blending into black hardwood until everything is one big swirling smudge. It’s a little comfort, at least, that Yuri talks about him, but nowhere near enough to ease the betrayal that’s biting down at his core.

Undeterred, Alyona offers her hand. Reluctantly, he takes it in his, because even in anguish, being courteous is well-ingrained within him. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Beka.”

“Otabek.” He drops her hand. Only family’s allowed to call him Beka. Family, and  _Yuri_.

“Otabek, whatever,” she says, brushing off his callousness with an easy wave of her hand. All Otabek wants to do is slam the door shut, slide his back down the wood until he’s splayed out on the floor. Maybe, if he’s lucky, the blazing heat of his heartache will melt him, and he’ll disappear between the cracks in the slats. Maybe, if he’s even luckier, Yuri’ll come back before his traitor heart ends him, will scoop him up and tell him it’s all a bad dream. Kiss his forehead the way he does when Otabek’s pretending he’s asleep, brushing away his hair with shaking hands.

But he won’t, because he has a  _boyfriend_ , one that isn’t Otabek.

“Why are you here, then?” He opens his mouth to answer, but all he can think, all he can taste in his mouth is that wretched word. “Wait, are you here to look after the cats?”  _Boyfriend_. “Because if you are, that’s great.” A  _boyfriend_ , called  _Oskar_. “Yuri didn’t really give me too much notice, y’know? Something about an anniversary or some shit.” And he didn’t even tell Otabek about him. “I don’t know, you should have seen him, though, all dressed up. Makeup, heels, everything. He looked like a fucking model- oh, wait, is that Mishka?”

She pushes past him in a smog of sugary perfume, and just the thought of her scent mingling with Yuri’s almost makes him lose control. A few, forced breaths later, Otabek follows her inside, where she’s on her knees, bent over so her scantily short miniskirt shows just a snippet of white lace. If Otabek weren’t so truly infatuated with Yuri, it would have made for a delightful sight. Yet there’s nothing delectable about it, the curves too wide, too feminine, her skin a couple shades too rosy. Where should be arousing is simply lacklustre, and Otabek finds himself sitting at the kitchen counter finding the angry slant of Yuri’s writing more erotic than any woman could ever be.

It takes longer than he wants, but Alyona finally leaves, leaving lipstick stains atop that cats’ heads and her number on Yuri’s letter.  _In case you need me, for anything_. When Otabek searches Yuri’s facebook friends list he discovers that she’s seventeen, and even if he’s not remotely interested, he’s glad he’s able to dodge that bullet.

The emptiness of the apartment feels more stifling now, what with this newfound knowledge rattling around in his brain. Otabek knows where Yuri keeps his alcohol, a bottle of vodka he pulls out on days when yoga or yelling simply doesn’t cut it. He finds it now, stashed on top of the fridge, covered in a thin layer of dust, considering a glass before simply unscrewing the cap and taking a good, long swig. It burns down his oesophagus, but not as much as his emotions do.

He takes another drink.

*

Dusk has descended when he finally comes to, dragged from his drunken stupor by the buzzing in his head. No, not in his head, near it. Groaning, Otabek rolls onto his back, fumbling around him. His hand first lands amongst a pile of fluff, which could either be a living, breathing feline or a faux fur replica, before finding his phone buried amongst the couch cushions.

It’s probably karma, but there are six missed calls from Yuri, punctuated by a single message at the top reading  _what the fuck, asshole?_ Frantically, Otabek bolts upright, and the world spins nauseatingly on its axis as he waits for the call to connect.

But it doesn’t connect, doesn’t even make it past two rings before he’s listening to the mocking modulation of that godforsaken voice mail message again. Otabek frenziedly thinks through everything he’s said, everything he’s done, purposefully brushing over the bruise that is the  _B_ word that promises pain if so much as prodded. What could have occurred in a matter of hours to make Yuri hate him? Was it Alyona? God, maybe she’s said something to him, heaven knows what, to make Yuri change his mind. What’s he going to do now? What’s going to hap-

Otabek looks down at his hand in wonder as his phone lights up with a new message.

**Yura** : Can’t talk rn. You fed the cats?

If relief had a sound, it would be the gargled groan that escapes him, gruff and guttural as he collapses back against the cat-print cushions.

**You** : Not yet.

Otabek can just  _feel_ Yuri’s annoyance pounding with every pulse of the blue dots that flutter at the bottom of his screen.

**Yura** : Then what the hell have you done?

(If only he knew)

**Yura** : If you’re gonna stay, the least you could do is keep my animals alive, asshole.

It’s different now he can see it in writing as opposed to some offhand comment made in the spur of the moment.  _Stay_ , as in he’s welcome here, not just some unwanted intruder lurking where he doesn't belong.

**You** : I can stay?

Because he has to clarify, has to know that this is something Yuri’s comfortable with. As much as his actions indicate otherwise, what Yuri wants is ultimately what he wants. He wouldn't stay if he wasn’t wanted.

Would he?

**Yura** : I already said you could, didn’t I?

At least he's not given the opportunity to find out that answer. Truthfully, he’s a little scared of what it would have been.

**Yura** : Just replace what you use and keep it clean, yeah? And let me know when you're leaving so I can get someone to look after the cats.

Keep it clean. That’s funny, considering the apartment could be considered disorganised at best. From his vantage viewpoint from the sofa, he can see three used coffee mugs and double that of socks stuffed haphazardly under the coffee table, covered in hair and who know’s what else from his skater feet.

**You:** Thanks, Yura.

**Yura:** Don't thank me yet, Beka. You owe me big time. Like anything-I-want big time.

Otabek smiles despite himself; he'd serve up the world on a silver platter just to see the delight on Yuri’s face.

**You** : Of course.

With that, Yuri promises to talk to him later, leaving Otabek wondering what to do with his newfound permission.

Turns out, it’s not a lot. No matter how hard he tries, the dangerous part of his mind, the one he tried to drown in volumes of vodka, begins gnawing at the tender thoughts he wants so desperately to suppress. Minutes pass, and he’s left with a dark need to at least  _know_ who Yuri’s with, to put a face to the name that haunts him like a poltergeist. Yet knowledge is power, or in Otabek’s case, a weakness. Finding a face means identifying the unknown figure that he summons in his mind, the figure that so easily could be him instead.

Ultimately, morbid curiosity gets the better of him, because why not sucker punch himself when he’s already down and out. First, he scours Yuri’s Instagram, through the artsy shots and aesthetic images that spam his feed. There’s no one tagged, no one besides Otabek, anyway, or other skaters from over the circuit, and there’s no use searching who Yuri follows- despite how public he is with his detestation of his Angel’s, he’ll still follow them back just to make their day, so the figure is up in the thousands.

His next port of call is Snapchat, because if he’s travelling specifically to see this Oskar, then Yuri may just have posted something to indicate him doing so. Yet, again, there’s nothing, only a video of the world blurring out the window of the Sapsan, followed by a still of his Starbucks order. Otabek doesn’t even need to look to know it’s peach green tea.

Finally, he opens facebook, going straight to Yuri’s private page. It’s been a long while since he’s visited Yuri’s profile, and consequently, he’s blessed with a profile picture he’s never seen before. In one word, he’s gorgeous, ethereally so, what with his spun gold hair braided so it sits in a shimmering halo atop his head. Bold, beryl eyes are lined with even bolder liner, finished with flirty little flicks flourishing from his lashes that transforms them into something fierce, something  _feline_.

Otabek can’t resist, tracing the curve of Yuri’s neck with his thumb, trailing down to the delicate decolletage that’s draped in gauzy gossamer. He looks absolutely divine, heaven-sent straight from the depths of his wildest dreams. Yet he’s real, staring up at him from the palm of his hand wearing a smirk Otabek’s longs to taste on his tongue.

He didn't come to Facebook to find pictures to fawn over, though. Otabek has plenty, stored in folder deceptively titled  _Tech,_ because honestly? No one  _should_ find anything intriguing about audio interfaces and electrical equipment. Tucked between a few decoy images of pop guards and a  _Rode_ tube mic he’s been legitimately eyeing up, is  _Yuri_. Yuri on ice. Yuri laughing. Yuri sleeping with his mouth wide open. Yuri spamming his camera roll with ugly, cross-eyed selfies, pointed pink tongue touching the tip of his nose. Yuri held in his arms, smiling at him with a warmth that burns brighter than the sun setting behind them. Yuri straddling Otabek’s bike, curled up on the middle of his bed, covered in flour as they bake in his kitchen during the few weeks they share together during the off-season in Almaty. Yuri shirtless for magazine articles, dolled up in designer dresses for fashion shoots, flushed enticingly with excitement and exertion during after performance interviews.  _Yuri_ ,  _Yuri_ ,  _Yuri_. An ever-growing collection capturing every aspect of him, all kept in the safety of Otabek’s back pocket.

Because he’s a weak, weak man, he saves the image before moving back to his original task- friends list. In total, there are three Oskars: one is a figure skating coach in Poland, another obviously a friend of his Grandfather’s if the profile picture of the two of them smoking from pipes is anything to go by.

Otabek instantly recognises Oskar Ivanov, the son of a big sponsor who had stepped in for his ill father back at Worlds last year. He possesses features that are stereotypically attractive: dark, smouldering eyes, wavy hair slicked away from his face, a jaw that could cut glass- all features he too possesses, he remarks grimly. Features that obviously aren’t enough on someone shorter, someone stockier than the lithe grace Ivanov had held himself with.

Karim had been the one to introduce them, shooting a hopeful smile at Otabek and a stern look at Yuri, who was hanging off his arm, that begged him to please,  _for the love of God_ , behave. Well,  _behaving_ had never been Yuri’s strong suit, not when he was sober, and certainly not with half a bottle of vodka in his system to drown out the misery of placing  _third._ To his credit, Ivanov had taken Yuri’s drunken in his stride, shaking off the clumsy touches and slurred insults with polite laughter and a professional smile.

Also to his credit, Ivanov had taken care of Yuri when Otabek became tied up talking to 0ther sponsors. Now he realises, with a sickening jerk in his stomach, just how well he had  _taken care_ of him. The last time Otabek had seen the two of them plays crystal clear in his mind, Ivanov with his hand low on Yuri’s waist, guiding him away as he muttered on about how he  _didn’t need to be babied,_ and how he  _wasn’t even that drunk, anyway, you should fucking take a look at Katsudon, he’s half naked._ Which, granted, had been true. Otabek had seen way more of Katsuki’s skin than he ever desired to, deep down knowing who he’d rather see shirtless.

Hours later in their hotel room, Otabek had lain wide-eyed and weary, a combination of anguish and annoyance leaving him unable to sleep without Yuri safe by his side.

It all makes sense now, the full picture unfurling before him.

In the morning, he had awoken to Yuri sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blankly out onto empty streets kissed with the first light of dawn. Otabek remembers him sighing, the full body kind that sags the bones in your shoulders, before he released his hair from where it was messily clasped to his head, the curling ends ablaze with heavenly fire. He’d been gentle in his apologies, uncharacteristically calm, tightening his fingers into last night’s clothes whilst his gaze lingered unseeing on the horizon. Then, he was kicking off his shoes, stripped to nothing but boxers and burying himself into Otabek’s side. Even in that moment, Otabek knew something had changed. Every nudge of his nose against his neck, every sweet sigh and sinful stroke of skin on skin, as if he were memorising all of Otabek’s being.

As if he were preparing to say goodbye.

Bile bites at the back of Otabek’s throat, and no matter how hard he swallows it down, it rises and rises until he’s shooting up and spluttering over the kitchen sink. How could he have been so  _blind_? So dumb in love, or  _lust_ , or whatever the  _fuck_ this infatuation is, to not see what was so plainly before him?

It’s obvious now. Their Skype growing shorter, or cut off with an off-handed excuse, or even forgotten about entirely somedays. How Yuri wasn’t as clingy when they were together, not like he used to be. It kills him inside, knowing the days of sharing each other’s space, of sleeping in a tangle of limbs and long hair that always, _always_ ended up caught in Otabek’s mouth. It had been six months since Worlds but that time had stretched like an eternity, when his reason for living had slowly been drifting away, leaving Otabek stranded in unfamiliar waters he didn’t know how to tread.

_Boyfriend._ It was everything he wanted. Everything he had once had, let’s face it, stolen away by a smug smirk in a  _Saint Laurent_ suit, and it had happened right underneath his nose.

An odd calm settles over him, the kind that prickles his skin with tiny shocks of electricity. The calm before the storm, because he can feel it brewing within him, a sickening twist of envy and enmity that threatens to control him.  _Mine_. Someone- not someone,  _Oskar Ivanov_ \- had stolen what was  _supposed_ to be his.

For a while, he breathes deeply through his nose, chest heaving, but not shaking- not just yet. Anger would come again later, he’s sure of it. Right now, he at least needs to do what Yuri’s asked of him. Feeding the cats takes a matter of minutes, but by the time both felines are feasting from their respective bowls, there’s an undeniable itch under Otabek’s skin, familiar and feverous in its ferocity.

It’s the same feeling he got last night, in between hanging up on Skype and booking the plane ticket, the undeniable  _need_ for him, for Yuri, against him, around him, all over him. Only now, that need is tarnished, blackened with the dirty truth, tainted with betrayal.

And that only intensifies his desire.

He finds himself in Yuri’s bathroom. Showering had been on the agenda, anyway, and just the thought of standing where Yuri stands, stripped naked, makes his dick twitch in his pants. All he can imagine is him flushed pink, from the heat of the water, from scrubbing his skin raw after sweating all day at the rink. In the throes of an orgasm, breathy gasps muffled against the tiles. Otabek’s no fool; he’s a healthy young man who’s shared many moments of pleasure with his own bathroom walls. It’s easy, efficient, yet envisioning Yuri losing himself under the showerhead is nothing short of erotic.

He takes a deep, stuttering breath.

Everywhere he looks, he discovers little reminders of Yuri’s existence: a hairbrush snarled with strands of gold, elastics and bobby pins populating pearly porcelain, moisturisers and face masks with muddy fingerprints on the packaging and makeup and whatever the hell micellar water is. Absently, he picks up the brush, twirling it between his fingers as he turns to the mirror. It’s smeared with the ghost of condensation, but through it he catches a glimpse of a man he barely recognises. Lack of sleep bruises the delicate skin of his under eyes, irises rimmed red and pupils so blown out they consume all but a slither of dark brown. It’s as if he’s seeing a reflection of his soul, wretched and rotting, a slave to the suffering that is unrequited love.

He looks as if he has nothing left to lose.

Probably, Otabek muses, snagging the gold strands from the bristles, because he doesn’t.

For all his troubles, he's left with a fistful of hair- Yuri’s hair, wrapped around his knuckles, scratchy against his palm. This would be the aftermath, Otabek thinks, after knotting his fingers into his silken waves, digging until his nails bit into Yuri’s scalp, pushing him lower and lower until he’s choking on him. After pulling him away when he releases deep down his throat, lips swollen and slick with an intoxicating concoction of saliva and semen, blinking up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

It could have happened. Could have happened in this very room, maybe. In the shower, Otabek would like to think, where his gags are masked with the cascade of water, the evidence of his undoing swept away down the drain. Maybe that's what Yuri’s doing right now, on his knees for another man. A better man, probably, one who isn't achingly hard at the thought of face fucking his best friend.

But alas, Otabek doesn't want to  _be_ a better man. He wants to be  _Yuri’s_ man, and the only way that’s going to happen now is with inventive imagination and downright denial.

Hair scatters down to the floor, no doubt to become a plaything for the cats, but Otabek couldn’t care less for cleanliness right now, more concerned about the heat between his legs that threatens to burn greater than the anger in his heart. In a matter of seconds, he’s naked, fiddling with the water temperature until it matches the throb in his veins.

Steam clouds the room the same way Yuri clouds his thoughts, heavy and heady, thick in his lungs as it carries the scent of sweet shampoo that he's spent years breathing in. It’s stronger, richer than when his nose furrows into Yuri’s golden crown, diluted by the natural smell of his skin. Though it lacks the close intimacy he craves, every lungful is almost enough to convince him Yuri’s there, beside him. If he closes his eyes, it’d be easier to imagine, his own hand morphing into something slender and beautiful, touching him, teasing him exactly how he likes it.

Yeah, he could jerk off right now, swallowed in Yuri’s scent. Or, he could wait. There's a whole bedroom, a whole treasure trove he's yet to explore holding so many more possibilities than a sad wank over some  _Spun Sugar_ shower gel.

So he resists, twists the dial until the water is ice cold, dousing the desire he's allowed to build within him. Why waste all of this pent-up energy over something so insignificant when something better, something much more tempting could take his fancy?

Foregoing clothing, Otabek leaves the bathroom and is instantly assaulted by a flurry of tooth and claw as Mishka tries to assail his bare leg. It doesn’t surprise him, Yuri always leaves the door cracked for the cats to wander in and out as they please, even when the facilities are in use. He’ll never forget the time he walked in on him, Potya perched in his lap, one hand furrowed in his fur, the other scrolling through his phone.  _What’re you staring at, asshole?_ he’d spat, and the answer to that was his bare thighs that, even in such an incriminating circumstance, still inexplicably enraptured him.

Shaking his head, Otabek plucks the kitten up and decides maybe underwear is in order, at least, if he wants to protect his manhood from the same fate as his scratched up legs. Food is next on the agenda, considering he can’t even recall what his last meal consisted off. With Mishka purring away on his now clothed shoulder, he rummages through Yuri’s fridge to find something remotely consumable. There’s bottle upon bottle of homemade smoothie, but considering he’s well aware of Yuri’s new found obsession with pineapple, something he’s inconveniently allergic too, he steers clear of them. There’s not much else besides that, and Otabek ends up making an omelette that’s a little too heavy on the cheese considering his diet plan, but fuck it. Just being here alone is a once in a lifetime opportunity, he might as well indulge in more ways than one.

Snooping through Yuri’s Netflix account is an interesting affair. In his history is  _RuPaul’s Drag Race_ , which doesn’t come as a surprise, the  _Dark Web_ documentary series they’d been watching concurrently, and a program Yuri’d sworn he’d never cast his eyes upon.  _I don’t fucking get the hype over it,_ he had complained after Otabek had suggested they’d watch it together,  _I’d rather shove my toe picks into my eyes than watch some gay space shit._ Yet the evidence lies before him in the form of a red bar halfway through s3:5, and Otabek makes sure to snap a picture to hold against him in the future.

He attempts to watch a nature program, something with lots of big cats that Yuri would cry over, to make it feel as if he were here, as if he made the choice, arguing with Otabek until he reluctantly gives up his hope on anything history related. For a while, it works. Both felines come to curl up around him, and with his eyes on the screen, it’s almost as if he’s stroking Yuri’s hair. But then the biting starts, and the squabbling over space, and playful swats become scratches and the fantasy is shattered by a cacophony of harsh hisses.

Separating them is easy enough. Settling back down and trying to reimmerse himself is a different story. A welt of his arm is lazily weeping blood, the pain dull and distracting. If Yuri were here, he’d laugh at the scowl on Otabek’s face.  _That little thing? That’s fucking nothing, Beka._ There’s a scrapbook of scratch scars covering Yuri’s body. Otabek knows this because the first time he complained over  _a pathetic little prick_ Yuri had taken his time to show him each and every one. Both of their favourites had been twin faint lines disappearing into the waistband of Yuri’s  _Calvin Kleins_.  _My first cat, Oka, was a bitch,_ he had said, telling him how those were the last marks she had left on his skin, how he liked having them there, a piece of her with him for forever.

Otabek liked them because he wanted to run his tongue over them, all the way down to the base of Yuri’s dick.

Yuri’s not here, though, he’s reminded again, and it weighs heavily on his heart. Yuri’s not here, but Otabek wishes that he were, so he drags himself upright and walks towards his room.

The door is slightly ajar when he approaches, revealing a strip of plush purple shag pile. Band stickers and skating memorabilia are tacked to the wood, train tickets and sightseeing maps, a paper trail of Yuri’s past. A postcard of Park Güell is what captures his attention, of the same view the two of them looked over after deciding to become friends, stuck together with an admission stub- dated 9/12/15, or, as Otabek sometimes likes to recall it as, the best day of his life.

Potya pushes into the room, breaking Otabek from his reverie, his fluffy, fat body somehow squeezing through the small gap. For a moment he watches as the cat’s tail bristles around the frame, before disappearing along with its owner into the room. Shrugging, because this really isn’t that big of a deal, Otabek follows.

It’s cold. The whole apartment is, but Yuri’s room chills him to the bone. With just one glance, he can see the chaos that Yuri’s left behind. Clothes are strewn all over the floor, all over the unmade bed. Otabek can see skating gear and shredded jeans and  _fuck,_ that’s a pair of panties, screwed up on the foot of the bed. God, his knees go weak at just the sight of them, as memories he keeps tucked away for the dead of night threaten to rise to the surface.

_No. Not yet._

There's so much more to take in first. Posters and polaroids, many-a-medal, memories held in tokens and trinkets crammed onto shelves. Pieces of Yuri scattered over every surface, every wall, in a picture frame propped on the bedside table of two figures kissing at dusk.

Everything else fades to black, besides the sun caught in Yuri’s hair, and the man whose hands are threaded through it.

_Mine._ It comes as a guttural growl that rips up his chest, causing Potya to shoot up from his nest in the duvet. But Yuri isn’t his, the flame in his soul not Otabek’s to kindle, even if it sets every cell in his body ablaze. Every breath feels like he’s dragging smoke into his lungs, his throat thickening with tears. They burn at his eyes, too, burn like his love, like the hope he had, until reality rains upon him with a thunderclap that booms  _boyfriend,_ and he smoulders until all that’s left is ash.

He can taste it on his tongue as he turns away.

And when he turns back, grabs the frame and smashes it against a wall, he doesn’t taste anything at all.

*  

Minutes seem to fade into one another. The sofa isn’t comfortable to sleep on, not now he’s startlingly sober, so he crawls into the cat canopy and settles on the dozens of pillows that definitely weren’t marketed for pet beds. He’d had the sense, at least, to turn the thermostat up, higher probably than it’d ever been before. Though the cushions may be comfy, the blankets piled in the corner looked as if they’d never been washed, and even if he is happy to have Mishka buried in his armpit, it doesn’t mean he wants to smell like her.

When not even her rhythmic purrs can coax him to sleep, he goes to retrieve his journal where he’s left it in the kitchen. It’s habit now, going through his list for the day, comparing it to what happens in reality, then writing a new one for the next, all before going to bed. Void is the mess of today’s list- Otabek’s even tempted to rip it out, to pretend it never existed- so he begins to make another, one for a tomorrow better than the last twenty-four hours.

_Wake up. Feed the cats. Call Yuri?_ It hurts to jot down a question mark, but he doesn’t know where he stands anymore. He branches out from the name.  _Send him photos of the cats_ and  _skype him with the cats._ Two options. Both plausible, though he hopes Yuri will go for the latter.  _Go out. Get breakfast._ He’s going to have to go out, but he’s only got a wallet full of tenge. Which reminds him-  _check bank account._ That he can still do, could even do it now if he got up again, but his limbs are growing heavy, and the purring’s starting to do its job. The only thing that’s missing is fingers running through the short hairs at his nape, but being able to roll onto his front, to bury his face in a pillow that holds the ghost of Yuri’s perfume, is enough to coax him into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I firstly like to thank everyone for being so patient with me. This year has undoubtedly been the worst of my life, and it's taken a long time to be able to heal myself. This was originally going to be posted as part of the shitbang, but life took that opportunity away. I'm lucky that my wonderful partner, tehyukerpageorandom, has been so kind and considerate. Their wonderful art will be inserted in chapter three, and I hope that y'all enjoy it ^.^
> 
> Thank you, as always, to my absolute rock Neveraines, for being my 5 am support and voice of reasoning. Thanks to Juju, Jes and Foxy for listening to my whine. Thanks to ded and Alex, who I've been a shit friend to recently, but helped this fic more than they know.
> 
> This is my first Otayuri smut (because Otaplipo doesn't count y'all) so I'm super nervous to see your responses, but I look forward to them none the less (:
> 
> (Also, if there are continuity issues, I pretty much wrote this in the chunks the chapters are split into- it's weird reading back something I wrote months ago and being like 'oh my god I forgot I added that in' so I'm sorry if the flow is weird)
> 
> [ come talk to me on tumblr @ zeldaismyhomegirl ^.^](http://zeldaismyhomegirl.tumblr.com/)  
> I'll see y'all in a couple of days,
> 
> xoxo Cat


	2. You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here, lads. 
> 
>  
> 
> Don't judge me too harshly.

The next day goes by in a blur. Waking up brings fleeting moment where everything is okay, until the nose nudging his neck is too wet, and the hair in his mouth doesn’t taste like strawberry shampoo. For the most part, he follows his list, getting up after he’s fed up with being pounced on, brewing a cup of green tea because even after all this time, Yuri refuses to stock coffee to accommodate any potential guests.  _ Call Yuri  _ doesn’t happen, and although it hurts that Yuri doesn’t have time for him, he’s not surprised. The picture of the cats eating ravenously from their bowls is returned with a sleepy selfie that Otabek’s instantly obsessed with. 

Blond hair covers the pillow in tangled curls, snarling around his ears and the delicate diamond studs that pierce his lobes. There’s a smirk playing with his lips, softened with sleep but smug all the same. A low cut shirt drapes drastically low on his chest, the bud of a rosy nipple peeping out just above the collar, winking with gold. Otabek realises after a long, _long_ while that his hand is held in their trademark thumbs up.

When he finally leaves for his morning run, the image is there, carved into the backs of his eyelids, a flash of gold every time he blinks. Yuri must know what he does to him, must know that the provocative little photos drive him wilder than any person should be capable of. Maybe he gets off on it, Otabek muses, pounding up the pavement towards the Mariinsky Theatre. Maybe he likes people looking at him, likes Otabek looking at him, likes them touching themselves to the fantasies a simple snapchat or an Instagram post can provide. 

It wouldn’t phase him, Yuri being an exhibitionist, not in their career path. They spend hours a day training to be stronger, fitter, flexible so they can look beautiful on the ice, to be the best under hundreds, thousands, millions of greedy eyes that consume their performances as if all they are is pieces of raw, bleeding flesh waiting for them to devour. It takes years, decades for some, to not let them affect you, and if taking inspiration from Giacometti helps him- well, Otabek definitely isn’t going to tell him otherwise.

Just thinking about Yuri’s body, tight and toned, is making Otabek hungry, so he decides to detour and grab breakfast instead of fantasising just how great Yuri’s peachy ass would taste fresh from a free skate. There’s a small café on the end of Yuri’s street, a family owned establishment that makes the best Danish pastries he’s had outside Denmark. It feels strange to go without Yuri by his side, feels stranger when the owners recognise him and start up idle conversation.  _ How’s life been _ and  _ you haven’t been here for a while, are you staying long?  _ All Otabek can do is smile as his mocha is made, slotted next to an iced tea  _ on the house, for Yuri _ in a takeaway container. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them otherwise, slipping a couple hundred rubles he found stuffed in Yuri’s training bag into the tip jar as he leaves.

The pastry is just as good as he remembers it being, but he doesn’t have the pleasure of watching emerald eyes fluttering close in mouthwatering bliss, doesn’t get to brush crumbs from the corner of Yuri’s mouth that the tip of his tongue just can’t reach. When he gets back to the apartment, he snaps a picture of his  _ Spandauer _ , one large bite taken from it so it almost looks like a heart.  _ Wish you were here  _ he says. His heart flutters when he gets  _ I wish I was fucking there, too,  _ accompanied by a pathetic looking bowl of oatmeal.

By the time he’s briskly showered, it’s nearly noon. Both of the cats have hidden away, and with nothing else of importance to occupy his time, Otabek figures he might as well do some sightseeing whilst he’s here. Without a bike, though, he has to rely on the metro, and although he isn’t bothered by public transport, there’s a distinct lack of freedom being crammed in a clammy carriage than there is riding on the back of a Harley. 

Nothing captivates him, not like it would have with Yuri babbling away at his side. The Church on Spilled Blood doesn’t seem as vibrant without Yuri’s stories breathing life into the building, the vendor blini is bland and street musicians just grate his already raw nerves. Secrets beckon to be discovered back in Yuri’s apartment, and they entice him back way before the sun begins to set.

Yuri texts him as he’s kicking off his boots, stashing them between a gaudy pair of leopard print creepers and platform shoes studded with spikes.  _ Can you take the rubbish out?  _ dotted with a devil emoji which Otabek doesn’t take as a good sign. He knows what Yuri’s room looks like, knows that there’s packaging and packets and probably decomposing food if the apple in the kitchen yesterday was anything to go by. 

And the glass from the picture frame. He’s covered it with clothing so the cats didn’t injure themselves on it. It’s probably a good idea to clean that up too.

Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair, begrudgingly accepting his fate of playing housemaid. Afterall, it’s probably fair for Otabek to do something in return, what with staying here for free. Hovering seems like a good place to start, and he begins meticulously vacuuming the carpets, couch, cushions until what was once covered in cat hair is satisfyingly spotless. It won’t last for long, a waste of time for him to be so thorough, but he’ll be rewarded with a clean bed to sleep on tonight.

Two bin bags are dug out from under the kitchen sink, one for laundry and the other for rubbish. Otabek goes through every room, filling the two, until all that’s left to conquer is Yuri’s room, and he stands outside the door like he had done last night. A hand reaches out to the Barcelona postcard, as if simply touching it could bring him the same confidence he had summoned the day he had rescued Yuri, before pushing into the threshold. 

Both cats are curled together on the bed, Potya’s longer body wrapped protectively around his younger sister’s. A glassy eye squints open in a death glare, tracking Otabek as he moves further into the room with his bags bustling behind him. Low, lazy yowling lets him know just how welcome he is, but after a couple minutes of chin scratches and a kiss to the tip of his nose, he settles back down again, resting his head on Mishka’s back. It’s so unbearably cute, Otabek has to take a picture, sending it to Yuri before he can think of the consequences.

**Yura:** You’re in my room?

Swallowing thickly, he quickly types a response.

**You:** I thought you wanted me to “keep it clean”?

There’s a minute where the three dots stop and start, stop and start like his heart.

**Yura:** Fuck. Yeah, okay

And then-

**Yura:** Just... don’t judge me too harshly, okay?

_ Don’t judge him?  _ Otabek casts his eyes across the room, the only scandalising thing being the horrendous state of it. And the panties, but he’s purposefully ignoring those. They might as well not exist with how hard Otabek’s concentrating on not staring at them.

**You:** Worried I’m going to uncover all of your secrets?

That’s safe, right? Just friendly teasing- Yuri’ll get that- won’t he?

**Yura** : Something like that

_ Shit.  _ Before he can say he’s only kidding, Yuri’s excusing himself with a  _ behave yourself,  _ as if he knows exactly where Otabek’s track of dirty thoughts keep taking him. Mishka mewls when he groans, flopping down on the bed so his nose is tickled by her fur.  _ Don’t judge me too harshly.  _ Did that mean there is something here Yuri didn’t want him to see?

And then it clicks.  _ The picture. It’s probably that.  _ If that’s the most incriminating thing in here, then Otabek’s going to be fine- if a little disappointed, but he pushes that thought back and gets back to his feet, starting with the clutter on the desk. It’s mostly wrappers from breakfast biscuits and cereal bars, a few clothes tags dotted here and there. Otabek picks one up at random and his mouth goes dry.  _ Gucci, $3.900.  _ That’s half the price of his Harley! And on a...  _ Nymphaea _ bag? Okay, now it makes sense. Yuri was worried he was going to discover his colossal spending habit.  _ Nearly four grand on a bag _ . Otabek shakes his head, deciding against binning the tag just in case Yuri has a change of heart and decides he wants to return it. One can only wish, right?

There’s a wrapper trapped in Yuri’s closed Macbook, the end sticking out like a set of silvery serrated teeth. Otabek  _ could _ just tug it out, could have done so without lifting the screen, without watching as it lights up, revealing the lack of password protection. Even if there were one, Otabek’s pretty certain he’d be able to guess it. Yuri’s unpredictable nature is completely lost to him, on someone who observes and obsesses over every little detail, on someone who’s undeniably devoted to the deity that is Yuri Plisetsky.

Otabek had figured out his phone passcode in two attempts. The first guess had been Yuri’s World Record-breaking short program score _ ( _ _ 11856) _ , and when that hadn’t allowed him access, he had brazenly entered a second four digits.  _ 3110 _ . Nothing could even begin to describe the warmth that had radiated from his chest, so fierce in its intensity it had burned at his cheeks as his face split open with a smile.

“What’re you looking so happy about, asshole?” Yuri had said, glaring at him in a compact mirror propped open on their shoddy hotel room bedside table. He was busy applying a second thick coat of mascara to his impossibly long lashes, lips parting as he shimmied the want through their lengths. The unlocked phone remained unnoticed until he had turned to grab at a tube of cherry red lip gloss. “What the hell, Beka?”

“You’re going to have to think of something better,” he had said as Yuri snatched his phone back so fast, the tip of a pointed, pearl polished nail snagged his skin.

And Yuri had tried, but when, another time, Otabek had guessed  _ 9874  _ ( _ wow, I didn’t know you were that vain, Yura),  _ Yuri had simply huffed, sat himself in Otabek’s lap and erased one of his fingerprint scans.

“You’re just gonna keep guessing it,” he said with a pout, wrapping his slender fingers around Otabek’s thumb and guiding it towards the home button. “Why should I even bother anymore?”

A computer password would be trickier, what with capitals and numbers and punctuation and all the good stuff that’s supposed to make it harder for anyone to gain access. But Otabek knows what’s in Yuri’s mind. He knows his lucky number is one, can recall the birth dates and years of everyone important in his life, even the ones he pretends that isn’t. It’s not a stretch for him to recount the house numbers of his childhood home, of his grandfather’s small Moscow apartment, the number plate on Nikolai’s rickety, rustbucket of a car, the one on Yuri’s custom chrome Mini Cooper convertible.

A fountain of knowledge flooding his thoughts, yet he can’t put any of it to use- not with Yuri’s reckless ways, anyway.  _ Who even leaves their computer unprotected _ , he muses, because honestly, it’s ridiculous that Yuri’s left himself open to such a weakness, being a public figure and all. All it would take is one sadistic fangirl, stalking him back here and breaking in, and his private information could be exposed for the world to see. Really, he’s lucky it’s only Otabek he has to worry about. Otabek, whose hands find themselves inching closer to the keyboard. Otabek, who timidly taps the space bar to open up a whole new world of Yuri. 

_ It’s his fault,  _ he thinks, picking up the Mac and taking it to the bed.  _ It’s his fault for being so careless. _

Dozens of tabs are open, the one currently on screen being confirmation for a train ticket- St. Petersburg Moskovskiy Station 6:52 am >> Moscow Leningradskiy Station 10:50 am. The next tab along is google maps, showing directions from the station to Khamovniki District, and Otabek has enough basic knowledge to know that that’s where Moscow’s richest live.  _ That’s where he lives. Oskar.  _ There isn’t enough information to pinpoint where exactly, but Otabek’s blood runs cold knowing that’s where Yuri is, where he’s gone to meet someone who doesn’t deserve him, not like he-

_ Stop.  _

Otabek clicks off the page, switching to another tab where Yuri’s bank account has timed out.  _ Please select okay to log back in again.  _ And of course he has his information saved, why did Otabek ever think Yuri was remotely intelligent? So he closes that too, and is left with a YouTube video paused a few seconds from the end.  _ Sexy Flawless Bombshell Makeup Tutorial,  _ showing a woman with smokey, seductive eyes and a glossy pout, and Otabek can’t help but imagine Yuri’s own lips plumped up like that, pressing sticky kisses to his neck, the taste of cherry and chemicals lingering on his tongue. 

_ You should have seen him, though, all dressed up. Makeup, heels, everything.  _ Otabek would do anything to know what he had looked like rushing from the apartment. What was he wearing? Knowing Yuri, it was probably something skin tight and scandalous, and if he was wearing heels (oh, Otabek salivates at the thought of Yuri in heels), then surely it would have been something emphasising his long, long legs. Shorts, perhaps? But it’s too cold for that, even for a figure skater’s skin. Jeans, then, or those ludicrous leather pants that cling to every curve, every contour of his beautiful body. He’s had dreams of Yuri straddling him wearing them, slowly grinding his crotch against him until-

_ You’re getting distracted. Cleaning, Altin. Cleaning, and then maybe you can fantasise.  _ But even as he’s berating himself, Otabek’s doing the unthinkable and clicking onto Yuri’s search history. Someone who doesn’t even password protect their laptop isn’t going to use incognito, and he’s rewarded for his sins with pages and pages of search results.  _ Net-a-porter _ and  _ Sephora _ ,  _ daily mail  _ articles probably slandering his name,  _ twitter, instagram, pornhub, tumblr- _

_ Pornhub?  _

_ Beautiful blond takes big dick raw  _ Jesus fucking Christ, and  _ gentle stud edges hot twink _ \- both being the kind of thing he would search up himself. And then there’s  _ biker hunk fucks blond boyfriend in leather jacket. _ Otabek can’t help himself; he clicks on the link and is instantly transported to the video. Chewing his lip, he casts a wary look to the cats sleeping soundly beside him before throwing all caution to the wind. There’s no way Yuri’s not done the same thing, and even in the minuscule percentage that he’s dick shy around them, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

So Otabek sits back, rests the laptop on his thighs, and presses play.

The quality is shaky, amateur, most likely someone’s home movie. For a few seconds there’s rustling, and then the phone is propped up and the scene comes into focus. A blond man is sprawled on a double bed, legs open and gaze on the person off camera. Lazily, he strokes himself, biting his lip and throwing his head back so his tousled hair slips over his shoulder.

A built guy wearing a worn leather jacket steps into view, and Otabek’s heart stutters in his chest. The blond says something with a sly smirk that Otabek doesn’t hear, because  _ God _ , if he squints just right, all the rough edges soften into Yuri. Yuri with his mouth agape choking back a moan, Yuri twisting at his flushed dick, leaking with precome, Yuri reaching out his hand for his lover, the man who looks so much like Otabek, begging to be touched. 

Shuddering, Otabek readjusts himself in his jeans, dick straining painfully against the denim. This- this could only mean one thing, right? Because it would be too much of a coincidence otherwise. What other reason would there be to search  _ biker  _ if not with someone in mind?  _ Does that- does this mean that-? _

But before his mind can explore that train of thought further, a  _ ding _ rings from the speakers, making Otabek jump out of his skin. Hurriedly, he closes out of the tab, just as a message bubble appears on the top right of the screen.

**Oskar:** I miss you too, princess. I went to bed thinking about you last night.

Clicking on it brings up iMessage, and a list of grey and predominantly blue bubbles. Skimming through them unveils everyday small talk, a few flirtatious remarks, and then a goldmine that Otabek never thought he’d be able to tap into.

**You:** I hope you enjoyed your anniversary gift, baby (; 

Just above it, Otabek can see a snippet of an image, a strip revealing what looks like two pale legs, and the leopard print sheets he’s currently sat on. 

When he scrolls up further, he can see a pair of underwear shoved down to mid-thigh.

_ If you do this, you can’t turn back. _ But couldn’t that have been said about everything he’s done in the past couple of days? No amount of planning would have led him to this moment, no intricately detailed list, no careful foresight. None of it could have predicted him having to make the hardest-  _ literally- _ decision of his life.

Another inch of screen, and the base of something thick and purple can be seen protruding from the body. A shiver runs down his spine, settling in his groin.

_ Fuck. Fuck it all.  _

Closing his eyes, Otabek scrolls and scrolls until he thinks it’s safe, squinting one eye open to see if the coast is clear. It’s nothing but an innocent picture of Mishka, curled up between Yuri’s crossed legs. At least, it is innocent, until Otabek spies the thigh highs, the sleek slip of a suspender belt hiding beneath the hem of his shirt.

**You:** We miss you

And Otabek descends.

The next image is a selfie, hair braided in two, messy plaits tied off with baby pink ribbon. One hand holds the camera, the other peels back the shirt-  _ Otabek’s shirt,  _ he belatedly realises, an old  _ Harley Davidson _ tee he’d let Yuri borrow and had subsequently disappeared- revealing a slither of lace and the delectable flesh of his thigh.

**You:** I want to show you something.

Beneath that, Yuri’s on his knees, back to the camera so all of the attention can be focused on the sweet swell of his pert ass, exposed by high cut lace as it rests on the heels of his feet. A single finger is trapped between his teeth, his bottom lip perfectly pouty and  _ oh so _ biteable as it playfully curves around it.

A breathy little gasp catches in Otabek’s throat, and it feels like it’s the first time he’s ever soaked in the sight of snowy skin stretching over lithe, toned muscle.

Except, it’s not.

There had been peeks, subtle glances over the top of a paperback as Yuri had changed in various hotel rooms around the world. Italy had been the first time there was lace, peeping out from beneath an oversized shirt. Otabek can still see it now, black like ink bleeding over his skin, riding impossibly high to disappear between the curves of his ass. And when Yuri had crawled across Otabek’s bed, had nudged at his arm until he could nestle into the nape of his neck? It had felt as if the world had blessed and cursed him concurrently.

He hadn’t touched him.  _ God,  _ he had wanted to more than anything, more than any gold medal, any kind of success. It had almost been too much, that soft, sweet ass brushing against his crotch in the night, so incredibly close, yet never close enough- but he hadn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t dare do it in risk of losing it all. And he was rewarded for it, in the form of a cracked bathroom door when he woke up in the morning.

It was wrong, so  _ very _ wrong, but Otabek was a man made weak in regards to Yuri Plisetsky, and one lingering look became two, and then two blended into a minute of undisturbed observation, maybe more. He didn’t know, nor care, not when he could see the muscles of Yuri’s thighs, taut and tight, as he stalked around the bathroom, a wildcat caught in a ceramic cage.

The shower was turned on, and steam had flooded the room, seeping out so even the windows besides Otabek clouded with condensation. Through the mist, he could see fine fingers trail up those powerful thighs, pushing up his shirt so there’s nothing but pale, moonlight skin contrasted with a slither of midnight, midnight that lowers and lowers until it’s a black hole against the white tiled floor, and when Otabek finally recovers enough to cast his gaze back up, the door was swinging shut.

He hadn’t known, not really, whether he was more disappointed or relieved to have his venereal view concealed. There was no concealing his erection, though, pressing persistently against his hip, no way of erasing images of Yuri, fierce and free, branded onto his brain, or the poker hot heat spilling into his groin. 

He’d had no choice but to look away then.

He doesn’t have to now.

And yet, he does.

_ Cleaning _ . He’s supposed to be cleaning, and there’s a hell of a lot left to tackle. With a will of iron, fortified from years of personal restraint, Otabek sets the laptop on the bed and begins to sort through the clothes scattered across the floor. Socks, scrunched up shirts, even a skirt or two that peak both Otabek’s curiosity and his eyebrows that reach for his hairline. 

The one he takes between inquisitive fingers is  _ tiny _ \- Otabek’s sure he could ball the fabric up into his fist- and pleather, the kind that passes as the real thing from a distance but just has an odd sheen up close. A screwed up pair of wide knit fishnets dangle from where they’re caught in the zipper, tangled and torn, and  _ God, _ Otabek would  _ kill _ to see Yuri in them, in that scandalous excuse of a skirt, clinging to his hips, to the ass he sees every time he closes his damn eyes. Longs to observe long stocking clad legs sauntering towards him, to feel the material digging into his skin when they wrap around his waist, snagging against his teeth as he tears them off.

_ Cleaning. Then you can dream.  _ The throb between his legs thinks otherwise, and Otabek’s eyes stray to the screen where the image of Yuri lies waiting for him, emerald eyes beckoning him to touch himself until two heavenly syllables fall from his lips. Otabek glances back down at his hands, at the fabric bunched between them, to the bin bags abandoned on the floor, then up once again to that fierce gaze.

He tosses the skirt to one side.

_ So much for iron will _ . He’s back on the bed, fighting with the buckle of his belt until he’s freeing himself, shoving his jeans haphazardly down his legs. There’s already a tent in his boxers, and he strokes himself through them until a wet spot marrs the fabric. In his haste to grab the laptop again, both of the cats scarper, but Otabek couldn’t care less as he scrolls down to the next picture.

**You:** Should I take them off? (;

It’s a front view this time, and Yuri’s ( _ Otabek’s _ ) shirt is lying on the floor beside him, every inch of his flawless, toned torso on display. Instantly, Otabek’s drawn to Yuri’s nipples, to the piercings that have haunted every single fantasy he’s had since they’ve been acquired. Everything within him longs to wrap his mouth around them, to nip and suck until Yuri’s squirming beneath him, chest painted in delicate shades of pink. Fervently, Otabek’s eyes roam lower, to the almost translucent trail of hair that disappears into the front of the panties.

The crotch is bulging.

“Shit,” Otabek hisses between gritted teeth, dipping his fingers into his own waistband. The weeping head of his dick peeks out from his foreskin, and he wraps his hand around the shaft, tugging back until it’s fully exposed and back again.

**Oskar:** Yes, take them off for me, princess. Let me see what you’re hiding.

“Please,” Otabek whines as he wrestles his jeans off the rest of the way, kicking them down to the footboard- right next to the discarded panties, and Otabek’s looking at them now. Really looking, at the delicate lace, the little satin bow that’s awfully similar to the one that decorates Yuri’s package on screen-

_ Oh. Oh shit. _

Using his foot, Otabek shimmies the garment up the bed, one hand still lazily stroking himself as the other reaches for the fabric. He knows Yuri is small, all compact muscle straining behind stretched skin, but he isn’t prepared for how  _ tiny  _ the panties are, how they can bunch up completely in his fist. They’re not just lace, but an erotic combination of stitching and silk that feels so much smoother than he could ever have imagined. Bringing them to his face, Otabek gently rubs the panties against his cheek, revelling in the scratch of his stubble against the fabric.  _ So soft. _

His hand stills on his dick, and he goes to scroll to the next photo, leaving slick smears on the trackpad. It’s revolting, but just knowing such an intimate part of him has stained something Yuri touches every day makes his dick twitch against his stomach. If there was ever evidence that Otabek Altin is a dirty pervert, then this would be it, nose turning to bury into the fabric of used underwear, eyes trained on the image of his best friend, panties pushed under his balls, dick flush against his stomach.

**You:** Like what you see?

He does, oh Otabek  _ does _ . Yuri’s pubic hair is neatly trimmed, the same pale gold as his hair, and his fingers are nestled suggestively in it, bright red nails pointing right at his erection as if to say  _ look at me.  _ So Otabek looks, and he looks, and he looks, until he’s sure he’d be able to sketch out Yuri’s thick form, the veins throbbing just under the surface, the foreskin that curls around the leaking head of his dick.

And the piercing. Another one, straight through his frenulum, in the same erogenous gold that’s through his nipples- except instead of tiny barbels, twin diamonds wink suggestively back at him. Otabek hasn’t ever seen anything so astonishingly sexy in his life, didn’t think anything could ever top the piercings Yuri’s already collected. This… this is something else entirely, something so private, only for the eyes of a lover and, in Yuri’s case, the eyes of his immoral best friend.

Oh, the things he would do for just a taste of him. 

The panties have almost been forgotten amidst the new discovery, draped now across Otabek’s shoulder, lace tickling at his collar. Gingerly, he takes hold of them again, rubbing the silk between in fingers much in the same way the fingers of his other hand tease his dick. One glance back at the computer screen makes him throb in his grasp, and it belatedly hits him, the fact that Yuri’s actually worn them. Not just worn them- he’s touched himself in them, and if anything could make Otabek any harder, it’s the possibility that he might have come in them too.

His hips jerk, as does his head, turning once again so he can bury his nose into the fabric. In one deep inhale, he can smell him. All of him, the sweet underlying fragrance that Yuri bathes himself in, the natural hint of musk, rich and sultry and oh so intoxicating. Otabek could live on the scent, the natural smell that Yuri produces. Wants to run his tongue all over him, to dip inside him and indulge straight from the source. 

So he does what’s second best. Damp silk isn’t a pleasant texture, but the flavours the material has captured makes the slight discomfort more than worth Otabek’s while. Slightly stale, but still delightfully delectable, a little salty with the tang of sweat, and beneath that, something simply sensual that has Otabek groaning around his mouthful. 

**Oskar:** You know it, Princess. Touch yourself for me. 

Otabek knows what the next picture’s going to be, can see it in his mind so clearly. Yuri with his pale chest flushed, a delicate rosy trail blossoming down his abdomen in perfect pink petals that would lead his gaze lower,  _ lower _ , until all he’d be able to see is the glistening slick decorating his stomach, one hand curled around his cock, the other playing with his ass. He wonders what beautiful sounds he’d make, if they’d be high pitched and keening, or low guttural moans caught in his slender throat. Or both, an arousing orchestra of grunts and groans and muffled moans that Otabek longs to coax from swollen lips.

So he teases himself with that thought, bringing himself to the brink and back again, squirming in an infuriating union of pleasure and the ache of his withheld release, building higher and higher, but never enough to topple over the edge. As soon as he feels his balls drawing up, he pinches himself so hard tears spring to his eyes, and when the feeling withdraws, he repeats the cycle until his hands are shaking so bad, he can hardly finally scroll to the next picture.

The reality is infinitely better. Of course it is. What could be better than the real thing, or at least a photograph of the real thing, there before his eyes instead of a memory painted behind them? Yuri’s lips are parted in an eternal pant, patterned with perfect punctures where teeth have tortured delicate flesh. There’s a slight sheen to his forehead that gives him this glorious, radiant glow, the kind that’s only cast upon someone amongst the throes of pleasure. Heavenly, you’d call it perhaps, or at least someone capturing a little piece of it.

Leopard print sheets become the background, rumpled beneath Yuri’s equally disheveled hair. A slim tube lies uncapped next to the pillow, the pillow Otabek’s currently lying on, and a quick search with his free hand finds the lube tucked between the headboard and mattress. Candy floss flavoured, so ridiculously Yuri and ridiculous in itself, because who in their right mind would want to tarnish the natural flavour of someone with sugary chemical shit? That small detail pales in significance once he focuses on Yuri’s fingers, the ones not holding his phone, curling deep within him to depths Otabek can only dream of touching.

**You:** Wish this was you. Wish you were here. Need you, in me.

Twisted fabric binds Yuri’s knees so they’re buckling together, creating an archway that perfectly accents the activities between them. Slick glistens on the peaks of his knuckles, stains the bedding beneath his hips, smeared against the soft skin of his sac he catches glimpses of behind Yuri’s hand. If it were him, if it were his longer, thicker fingers playing with him, how many would he be able to take? It’s hard to tell in the picture, but it looks as if Yuri’s up to three- but three of Otabek’s fingers would be so much more than three of his own.  _ Tight _ . He can imagine it, all hot muscle so impossibly tight around him, and if he crooked his fingers just so, he’d feel the overwhelming force of Yuri clenching around him, begging for more with an insistent rock of his hips, with the two little syllables that leave as gasps from his lips.

He’s close again. How could he not be, with Yuri in his mind and Yuri before him? But he needs to last, needs to see this through, needs to see  _ Yuri _ ,  _ his _ Yuri, covered in the seed of his pleasure, needs to be the one to do it, the only one who can do it, who can make him feel this way. He  _ needs- _

Shuddering, he bites sharply on the inside of his cheek, the shock of pain and the metallic tang of iron it brings just enough to recede his possessive though, to diminish the fire burning beneath his skin to a simmer he can control once again. The hand stroking himself slows, trails through the curls of dark hair at the base of his dick, skims lightly over his slit, slipping down his shaft until smoothing over his balls, his perineum, a whisper of pressure as he ghosts over his own hole. 

“ _ Ah _ .” It’s a noise he hasn’t made before, didn’t even know it was possible for him to do so, breathy and raw, hinting at a whine- but Otabek doesn’t  _ whine _ . And then he does it again, circles a solitary finger around his rim, and searches for the next picture of Yuri, and it’s clawing up his throat, tearing from his lips before he can capture the sound within them. 

**Oskar:** Fill yourself for me, princess.

**You:** Which one?

**Oskar:** The one I sent you.

And then it’s there, clutched in Yuri’s fist, resting against his pouty bottom lip with just the tip of his tongue touching the vibrant, violet head. It’s big, perhaps not a long as Otabek, but it certainly held the same mighty girth.  _ A waste _ , he thinks, tracing the outline of the phallus with envious eyes,  _ of those kitten kisses.  _ Kisses that could be caressing his own length.

**You:** This one? Are you sure?

A close up, from the side, of hollow cheeks and straining lips, the carnal column of a fragile throat.

**Oskar:** Don’t tease me, princess. Fuck your ass for me, not your mouth.

**You:** Like this?

He’s not even touching himself now, for if he were he’d surely be coming all over the keyboard. Instead, he drags the laptop closer, next to his head, next to the panties that are drying with his saliva, and simply studies. The scrunch of Yuri’s closed eyes, the wrinkle between his fair brows, the sharp painted arch smudging around the edges with sweat. Faint freckles smattering the narrow bridge of his nose, the peaks of his cheekbones, a single fallen star of a mark lying in the crater of his cupid’s bow. 

And then Otabek gazes lower, to the bead of sweat rolling down Yuri’s sternum, the way his stomach dips with the arching of his back, to his pretty, pink dick that leaks silken strands just below his navel, and then finally, lower still. A fist, knuckles white and threatening to tear through thin skin, with just a glimpse of shaft poking out above the thumb. The rest disappears inside him, rim stretched and shamefully red, glistening with remnants of all the lube it had taken to open himself up.

**You** : So full for you

**Oskar** : So beautiful, baby

**You:** I wish it was you. I wish it was your dick inside me.

_ I wish it was me. I was it was my dick inside you, Yura.  _ He wishes it was his length Yuri was stretched around, wishes he could run the pad of his thumb around where his rim swallows him whole, to whisper into Yuri’s hair, against his cheeks, his lips, how beautiful he is, how pretty he looks around his dick. Wants to kiss him until their mouths are swollen and sore, until the skin of his hole is too, until it’s slick with not just lube, but Otabek’s come too. And he’d kiss a tender path down his body, and lick at the mess that he’d made of his beautiful boy, lathe his tongue other his twitching entrance until he’s squirming and gasping and begging for  _ no more _ and  _ more more more Beka please more _ .

_ More _ . He hadn’t realised he was speaking out loud, but the timbre of his voice buzzes around his head, dancing with Yuri’s phantom moans. His hand is on his dick again, stroking and tugging and twisting until he’s groaning again. More. He wants more of Yuri- needs more of him, needs to see more, needs to know what he looks like in the throes of orgasm. He fumbles around until the next message is there, mocking him, laughing at the white hot pleasure that he’s been building and building, waiting for the moment where it’s about to topple over into something blissfully blinding to break into his field of vision.

**Oskar:** Call me

It’s the end. Not the one Otabek had been anticipating, but one that leaves him aggravatingly hard with a thirst clenching at his throat for something so much more than the simple  _ kk  _ Yuri responds with. The lust for a visual of Yuri coming, of him, flushed a precious pretty pink from pointed toe to parted pout, smeared with his own ejaculate, leaves him with skin too tight for his body and a pain in his balls from the restriction of his release. 

He scrolls, hand persevering to coax at least one sad orgasm from himself, but it’s just pleasantries.  _ I hope you enjoy your night, baby _ ’s and  _ message me so I know you’re back safe _ ’s. A few drunken selfies from the guy, red-faced with an alcoholic flush, showing a wide grin with a chipped front tooth, the silvery glisten of a filling in a lower molar.  _ At least I can take care of my dental health,  _ Otabek thinks snarkily, but if there’s one thing that can kill a boner, it’s thoughts on dentistry. He’s not even fully hard anymore as he reads more messages on expensive bottles of champagne, and some mutual friend that’s so intoxicated he’s slipped and cut his hand, and fucking  _ football _ , as if Yuri cares about any of those things- which Otabek knows he doesn’t. 

Through perseverance comes redemption, and Yuri, his sweet, sweet Yura, sends another picture.

**You** : Are you alone now?

**Oskar** : Not yet, angel

But it’s not angelic, the image on the screen. It’s a slender stomach cropped around the navel. A finger dips into a neat little belly button that Otabek’s always imagined lavishing with his tongue. Below it, the head of the dildo lies, slick with leftover lube, amongst splatters of come.

**You** : Too bad. I took more pictures whilst we were talking.

The next photo is better. Dirty, filthy in the way Otabek dreamt it would be, of what appears to be the moment of Yuri’s release. Seeing him bite his lip, one hand a loose fist around his dick, fingers dripping with come, the other fumbling between his legs, chasing his orgasm with the thick head of a toy, instantly ignites what Otabek thought he’d lost. In his haste to touch himself, he knocks the cursor across the screen.

And that’s when everything changes again.

It’s one of those live photos, Otabek realises in that moment, ones Yuri sends to him occasionally of him sticking his tongue out, or kicking his bare legs through bubbles in his bathtub. Perhaps they all were, Otabek doesn’t know. What he does know is that suddenly he can see the first cumshot, blurred as it is, from between Yuri’s fingers and splattering onto his navel.

**Oskar** : I’m in public, princess

“Fuck you,” Otabek says through gritted teeth, clicking to watch the moment over and over again, the slight tremble to the quality as orgasm hits, hips lifting off the mattress, thighs taut with tension. It’s delicious, and so incredibly intimate and Otabek feels filthy with this intricate introduction to Yuri’s sex life. But he doesn’t care. If having this heavy on his conscience is the price he has to pay, to see the little piece of heaven that is Yuri reaching for his, then Otabek would willingly become weighed down with it, leaden to the spot where his sins twisted into paradise.

A grunt pushes its way out through gritted teeth as he clicks once more on the picture, watches it again with desirous eyes, stroking himself with quick flicks of his wrist, twisting at the head and back again, over and over until pleasure’s thick on his tongue once more, burning down his throat into the pit of his stomach- and it all tastes like Yuri. He’s still there, in his mouth, the little taste of him he’d gotten from the panties lingering behind his teeth, and Otabek wants to swallow more down, to consume and be consumed by everything Yuri can give him. 

The silk is between his fingers again, and then his teeth, trapped between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and he’s so desperate, so  _ so  _ desperate for everything Yuri’s unknowingly given to him that he’s writhing and straining and moaning as he watches Yuri mark himself, a primal voice in his ear growling how it should be his come streaked over Yuri’s taut little stomach, dripping down his thighs from his hole to soil the sheets beneath him. Yuri should be  _ his. Is his-  _ in this moment, at least, within this fantasy carefully created with tainted pieces of reality.

He doesn’t know if there’s anything more Yuri can offer him, yet he searches anyway. With his hand, wandering to dip under the hem of his shirt, pinching at one tender nipple and pretending the blunt edge of his nail is the pointed tip of Yuri’s index finger, teasing until the skin is stiff and swollen. Searches the messages until there’s another image on the screen, a blur of blond and unblemished skin, the golden glimmer of the twin piercings.

When the image flickers to life, Yuri’s eyelashes are fluttering against his flushed cheekbones, panting lightly as he brings his fingers to his mouth. Come drips down them like them like candlewax, the pads resting on the swell of his lower lip for a moment before Yuri’s sucking it from them with the same manner he reserves for the first guilty swipe of frosting from the sweet strawberry cupcakes he occasionally indulges in on extra tough training days. There’s just a glimpse of tongue, and then Yuri’s eyes flick up, lips still wrapped around second knuckle deep, and it’s as if he knows- knows that his gaze alone is enough to make a man come.

And it does. Otabek’s orgasm hits him so suddenly, so violently, that he doesn’t have time to react, stroking himself through wave after wave of pleasure as hot come starts to cool on his naval, in between the muscular definition of his abdomen, the hem of the shirt he’s pushed around his pecs. He’s a mess, sweat slicked and mused, dragging air into his lungs that tastes like salt and sticky skin as his dick begins to soften against his stomach. For a moment, Otabek just lies there, staring up at the same ceiling Yuri stares up at every night, the same ceiling he too gazes upon in his post-orgasm haze, perhaps with a partner, or maybe with the cold affection of a plastic toy, and lets the reality of what he’s just done, what he’s just  _ seen _ , wash over him.

When he starts to feel more than bearably gross, he pulls his ruined shirt over his head, wiping at his torso until he’s acceptably clean, before sinking back against Yuri’s pillows. Through the scent of his own body he can still smell his Yura, a comfort blanket that wraps around him until, combined with an exhaustion that settles deep into his bones, it begins to lure him to sleep.

_ This is something to think about later,  _ he muses, burying his nose in animal print sheets. At some point, when Otabek’s balancing on the thin line between consciousness and dreaming, a cat comes to curl up against his chest. In his drowsy state, he can’t help imagining the small nose nudging at his collar belonging to someone else.

*****

_ He dreams of sex and skin, of lips and the lie he’s built to believe. He dreams that Yuri’s there, watching over him, dishevelled in thigh highs and the remains of rosy red lipstick, one hand wrapped around his dick, the other bunched into a fist, pressing hard against his mouth. When he feels as if he’s about to stir, the image begins to falter. A cried out no, and Yuri’s down on his knees, and then Otabek can’t see him at all. _

_ And then he opens his eyes, and is greeted with a crown of gold and the end of a wretched sob. Then he opens his eyes again, and Yuri’s looking back, with mascara tears trailing down his cheeks. _

_ * _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
> 
> That smut scene, specifically the panties bit, took me two months to right. Everything after the panties was written in the last two weeks. Panties stumped me. I was stumped by panties. I hope it was worth it xD Let me know what you think about my first ever Beka centric smut scene- it definitely was an adventure for me xD
> 
> Thanks y'all so much for such lovely comments- you don't know how much it means to me after spending so long from writing and creating. I'm so happy to be back <3
> 
> [ I'm no longer on hiatus so come talk to me @ zeldaismyhomegirl ^.^](http://zeldaismyhomegirl.tumblr.com/)  
> I also have a twitter! It's [ @ItsCatAvalon](http://twitter.com/ItsCatAvalon)  
> because someone had my user xD
> 
> I'll see y'all on Friday for the final part!
> 
> xoxo Cat


	3. Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A different point of view might spice things up, right?

It’s late. Maybe half past eleven, Yuri doesn’t know- couldn’t bring himself to look at his phone for the last few hours, to see that picture of them together, in some sort of fallacy of happiness. He doesn’t even know if it will still turn on. Just one look at his stupid fucking face, and he’d thrown it against the hotel bathroom wall, leaving splinters of glass for housekeeping to find.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. For the lights to be on, at least, perhaps even the television. Yet it’s exactly how he left the place, shrouded in shadows with only the mechanical whir of the heating breaking the silence. Then, he sees the shoes. A pair of biker boots two sizes too big looking out of place next to last season’s _Gucci_. A leather jacket hangs next to a faux fur coat, and Yuri can’t help but run his fingers down the sleeve before curiosity gets the better of him and he wraps himself in a bitter imitation of Otabek’s embrace. It smells like him, faintly, of Armani aftershave and the strong mint gum he keeps in the top zip up pocket. Yuri could really use some of that right now- the taste of cigarette smoke and cheap train station coffee is thick on his tongue- and he easily finds it before popping a piece in his mouth. He’s always wondered if kissing Beka would taste like this, thought about it every single time he was offered a stick before they got on the bike.

His heels click on the hardwood as he walks further in, the sound enough to encourage the cats out from their hiding places and scampering across the floor. Potya lets out a long, low meow, and Yuri gladly scoops him up into his arms as Mishka rubs around his ankles. It’s almost enough to make him cry again, feeling the deep rumble of Potya’s purr against his chest, but he’s cried enough to last a lifetime tonight- his red, raw eyes are his proof.

“Beka?” he finally says allowed, because he has to, really, despite the idea of Otabek seeing him like this, so broken and defeated brings bile up his throat. Yet Yuri really _really_ needs to see him, the softness to his expressive eyes he rarely shows to anyone else, the small half smiles the light up his entire face. _If he’s asleep,_ Yuri thinks, creeping towards the sofa, _I’ll leave him._ But there’s nothing but a pile of blankets and a duffle bag overspilling with clothes. _Oh. Maybe he’s gone for a run._

He settles Potya in the cat canopy and switches on the fairy lights, a soft glow illuminating the room. Floor to ceiling windows show a view of nighttime traffic, brake lights and headlamps, the neon glow of a flashing bar sign. Yuri’s normally asleep by half nine. Seeing St Petersburg in the middle of the night is a luxury he often can’t afford, yet now he watches cars drive deeper into the city for a few minutes to clear his mind, so he can figure out what to do next.

Shower. Or a bath- god, that sounds like a great idea. All of his muscles are aching, from being sat on a train for five hours, and choosing to walk from the station so he could sift through his thoughts. The Louboutins he wears are a half size too small and don’t belong to him, the only souvenir he’s brought back from his trip to the capital. More like some morbid war trophy, or a consolation prize for his battered heart. Only now, his feet are just as blistered and bleeding. Toeing them off only exposes torn stockings and crimson stains, but brings a sweet relief not unsimilar to finally unlacing yourself out of new skates.

 _Bath_. That way he doesn’t have to stand any longer. Mishka follows as he goes to the bathroom, mewling for attention and nipping at his ankles. Beka’s razor sits next to the sink. His hair gel, too. It seems second nature to pick the tub up and unscrew the lid, to take a little of the tacky gum between his fingers, to remember the feel of Beka’s hair under his touch. Sometimes, if Yuri begs enough, Otabek will let him style his hair, which is just an excuse for Yuri to play to his heart’s desire. Beka is always left to fix the mess he leaves behind, just like anything else he touches. In the moments in between though, when Yuri tugs a little harder, scratches his nails deeper into his scalp, he hears them. Choked sighs of pleasure, little groans that vibrate through his fingers and into the pit of his stomach.

He hears them even when Beka disguises them as something else.

Maybe he’s made those sounds in this room. As Yuri turns the water on full, as steam rises to caress his tired skin, he lets himself imagine Beka, here, alone, and the what if’s that accompany the thought. Once, when he was seventeen and only really realising he didn’t just like dark men with undercuts, he liked one man in particular, he’d listened. Listened as Beka had risen from the bed they’d shared at the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya and padded into the bathroom. A click of a light switch that spilt a harsh glow over his side of the bed and a door that took it all away like a solar eclipse.

At first, there was just trickling water- it wasn’t unusual for Beka to get up to piss in the night- but then there was… nothing. Yuri had rolled onto Beka’s side of the bed, watched the stupid digital alarm clock he took with him everywhere flash 3:14, 3:17, 3:19 as he unsuccessfully tried to keep his eyes open.

At 3:21, there was a moan.

Being well versed in the songs of sexual pleasure, Yuri knew what was happening. Whether he could believe it was happening was another thing entirely. Porcelain tiles aren’t used as soundproofing for a reason, and without the guise of a shower spray, Yuri could hear every single noise.

He was at the door before he could stop himself, ear pressed to the hardwood as he hungrily consumed every grunt, the raggedness of Beka’s breath, his own ringing loud in his ears as he slipped a hand down the front of his briefs. A whine built in his throat as he tugged on his dick, already hard and straining against the fabric, and between his teeth he took the collar of Beka’s shirt, the one he fell asleep wearing, and swallowed the sound around mouthfuls of fabric.

It didn’t take long for him to come. It had been days already since he’d touched himself. _Mon cherie, don’t you know you skate better when you have pent up energy, if you know what I’m saying,_ Chris had told him with a wink over a half empty martini glass. They were competing at _Internationaux de France,_ and Yuri had stewed at the bar with his pathetic diet coke after coming third- _third!_ \- after the short _. Why do you think Viktor did so well the Worlds after he met Yuuri?_

He’d placed first without _pent up energy_ after an exceptionally expressive free skate, and had celebrated his win with a bottle of champagne and an ice dancer in his hotel room.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t curious to how true Chris’s statement rang, so he’d decided to implement the theory for the Grand Prix Final and blame it on the Swiss skater if it ended up with him in last. So when he came the next time Otabek moaned, he blamed his brief chastity for how hard, how absolutely boneless it left him panting against the door frame. He was about to wipe his soiled hand on his shirt- but it was Beka’s, he’d be taking it home, and Yuri didn’t want to leave him with an unwanted gift. As he heard one final groan, the metallic squeak of the toilet roll holder, a flush, he licked the come from his hand and dove beneath the covers, the taste of himself sour on his tongue.

What he remembers most clearly is Beka’s flushed face, the curls of his unkempt hair flat against his forehead. The small _Beka?_ he croaked out, pretending he’d only just woken up, and the look of abject horror that fluttered over Otabek’s features, just for a second, before he had come back to bed and let Yuri curl up on his chest, a hummingbird heart beneath his ear.

It was then, three years ago, Yuri realised that he liked Beka as more than a friend.

It’s now, as he stirs the bath water with shaking fingers, he realises that maybe he should have said something long ago. To save him from all this heartbreak, the humiliation of being second best to another. The single tear that falls is swallowed before he can register it, and Yuri turns away from the tub with an indignant sniff before leaving to find some comfier clothes. A shirt of Beka’s, perhaps.

And then, he sees it. Light, seeping out from under his bedroom door. But light… would mean…

He’s there. Oh God, he’s there, naked, sprawled out across his bed, and Yuri doesn’t know where to look. Doesn’t know if he wants to look, to memorise the form of Adonis sleeping on his dirty sheets. Because remembering will make it harder for the inevitability of when Otabek finds someone he wants. Wants like Yuri wants him, like Yuri’s been trying to show him for all of these years. Skimpy tops that reveal a little too much of his chest, and little lace panties that leave nothing to the imagination and  _oh my god my panties are next to Beka’s head_. Yuri staggers further into the room, a rustle of a bin bag underfoot, and he freezes, terrified he’s going to awaken him. But there’s a desire within him, one that had started brewing back in the bathroom, and now Beka’s here, before him, like some fucked up concoction of his immoral imagination.

 _Do you want to do this?_ Normally he wouldn’t even stop to ask himself such a question. Yuri Plisetsky is a man who knows what he wants and takes it with little regard of the consequences. This, though- this is something more complicated than jumping on a flight to Fukuoka, or changing choreography last minute, or getting his dick pierced the night of his eighteenth birthday. It doesn’t hold the repercussion of a slapped wrist, or a fortnight’s abstinence.

Losing Beka is a very real fear Yuri has. What Yuri’s doing now, creeping closer to his bed, flipping off the light so only pale moonlight and tired eyes bathe Beka’s skin, could lose him. Casting his eyes over Beka’s naked form could lose him. Reaching a hand to gently, _gently_ push his hair out of his eyes could lose him. Slowly sinking to his knees on the mattress, one hand ghosting over his half hard dick could lose him.

There’s come dried to Beka’s stomach. Yuri can see it in the thick curls of his pubes, streaked on his stomach. He’s never seen his dick before, but it’s exactly how Yuri imagined it would be. Thick, even in softness, with foreskin his fingers twitch to play with. It rests heavy against his thigh, a modern day depiction of Priapus. He wants to know how it would feel, swelling on his tongue.

In the silence, Yuri moans, gripping himself through his underwear. Lace, _Coco De Mer_ , bought for the eyes of another, but with someone else in mind. It’s easy to push his dress up, to hold it between clenched teeth as one hand strokes and the other skims over warm, tan skin. He wants to know what Beka was thinking, whilst he was doing what Yuri’s doing to himself. Wonders if it means something, that he did it in here, in Yuri’s space, and not within lonely shower walls.

And then he notices his MacBook, open next to Otabek’s knee. Who would blame him for not noticing sooner, when the object of years of his sexual frustrations is spread before him like some sort of fertility sacrifice. With a trembling hand, Yuri wakes the screen, the ends of his hair brushing Beka’s hips. A shudder runs through them both, the muscles in Otabek’s stomach quivering as Yuri sits back on his heels, and stares at himself on the screen.

He knows what it means.

Every sinew in his body burns anew, with a passion bordering on pain. This time, when he touches himself, it’s as if he’s brushing up against a live wire. Little jolts of pleasure shock through him as he looks at himself, at Beka’s hands- hands that had coaxed orgasm over images of himself, his arms, the arbitrary freckle that dots his collar, the hollow of his throat. He has to bite down on his fist, nails biting into his palm, as he gets close, little needy whines breaking through over his knuckles.

He doesn’t see him stirring.

Head thrown back, knees spread wide, Yuri doesn’t see the flutter of eyelashes against sharp cheekbones, doesn’t hear the sleepy little grunt over the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears. His own eyes are screwed tight now as he tries to finish quickly, hand moving fast and twisting just right, thumb pressed to the slit and smearing precome. The slick _slap slap slap_ of foreskin moving over the head and back, the urgency that causes Yuri’s movements to become frantic, is reminiscent of early locker room days, where seeing the naked form of an athlete was too much for his young, virgin eyes. _Get off now, get off fast_ , locked in a stall where anyone could walk past, where anyone could hear the hitch in his breath as he came into the awaiting tissue in his hand.

Only Otabek could have heard it now, the noise caught in his throat stuttering like a bird caught in a cage. Only Otabek could have seen it, when he comes all over himself, hot between his fingers and dripping onto his thigh. But he’s asleep. _He’s asleep,_ unknowing of the fact that his best friend has just had one of the hottest wanks of his life over his resting form.

And Yuri should feel disgusting, but he doesn’t. Not like he did not ten hours ago, when he walked in on his _boyfriend_ having sex with a woman. Not like he did when he scrubbed off his makeup in the train station bathroom, knowing that in some way, he was second best, and nothing had ever hurt as much as not being good enough.

 _Yura_.

Maybe he wouldn’t ever be good enough.

“Yura?”

Something raw and wretched rips from his throat, and he’s falling backwards, falling down, _down,_ until there’s nothing but darkness around him and the sour taste of shame in his mouth. Nails scrape at his scalp as he wrings at his hair over and over and over, a twist for every bad decision, every little sip of sin he’s ever allowed himself, every lecherous thought he’s allowed himself to dwell on.

But then there’s more than just his fingers. And they’re gentle, massaging away the ache as whispers of _it’s okay_ cross the millimetres between them yet echo as if shouted across a canyon.

“Yura, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Beka’s stroking his hair now as if he’s some frightened feline and not the repulsive pervert that he obviously is, and all he can think about is how there must be come in his hair, and Beka won’t stop fucking touching him like nothing’s even happened. “You’re okay.”

He isn’t, though. Within twenty four hours, he’s lost a boyfriend, his confidence, and now he could lose Beka too. And he can’t lose him. He _can’t_. Oskar he could let go of, because who was he kidding? A brooding guy with an undercut who looked all too similar to someone else wasn’t fooling anyone. Wasn’t fooling himself, even when they were together. Through a fucked out haze and a squinted gaze, it was easy to pretend he was riding the dark horse of Kazakhstan and not some second rate equivalent. Mila mocks him mercilessly even now, just this morning with a text asking how _Oskabek_ is. It pissed him off to no ends.

It pissed him off because it was true.

“Yura.” It’s the way Beka says his name, like a prayer heavy with power, but with the stillness of a secret. Always so soft, a gentle rumble that’s more chest than throat. Closer to the heart. “Look at me, please.”

 _No_ . Maybe he says it aloud. The shape of the word buzzes against his lips, but that doesn’t mean the single syllable has slipped out. Looking up is dangerous, in the same sense as staring up into the glorious rays of the sun. Otabek, in all his beauty, his tender warmth and patience, could burn him alive with just the intensity of his gaze- and Yuri can feel it, without moving a millimetre. He can feel eyes boring into him, and he simply _can’t_. Can’t summon the strength to look up, to decipher the light behind his irises.

Can’t bear to find answers he doesn’t want to see.

“I’ve gotta clean up.” The bath is long forgotten and probably cold, yet it still calls to Yuri like a siren song. After a few steadying breaths, he unfurls himself so he’s standing, hands shaking lightly as he smoothes down the hem of his dress. A tuft of unruly hair sticks up from the top of Beka’s head, and Yuri finds himself staring at it as he says, “You should clean up, too.”

“Yura-” He sees Beka reach for him, and he cringes away. In a brief moment of weakness, Yuri glances down at him, catching the minute twist of lips that Otabek considers a frown. Whether it’s aimed at specifically Yuri or something else doesn’t matter, for it’s enough to make his heart sputter in his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Those last words rattle through his mind long after he’s left the room. _He’s sorry,_ Yuri thinks bitterly as he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. An angry slash is rubbed through the condensation, and a demonic version of himself glares back, red eyed and blotchy. There are sooty tear tracks decorating his cheeks. _Tears_. Fresh tears, spilling through his lashes because apparently crying is something he does a lot of now. Weakness is something he possesses now too.

He feels like a fake, in these fancy designer clothes. A pastel pink sweater dress and stockings, a diamond choker tight around his throat- it had been strangling him like a noose all day. A birthday gift from Oskar, who had money and liked to flash it, and liked having Yuri on his arm wearing things that money had bought.

On top of it all, like a funeral shroud, is Beka’s jacket. God, how could he have been so _stupid_ ? As if he didn’t already look desperate enough, he had been wearing his fucking _jacket_ . And he _likes_ it, in a different way than wearing jewellery with five figure price tags. He likes it because it’s Otabek’s, and it makes Otabek feel like his.

But Otabek isn’t his.

It’s easy to peel it all away, to shed the layers like dead skin and throw it away. Except for the jacket. Because he likes to torture himself irrevocably, Yuri stands in the mirror in nothing but the jacket, hair hanging in loose waves, his lower half completely exposed.

Sexy.

 _Sad_.

If it were any other man, he’d be able to step out of this room like this. Straddle their lap and press his lips to their throat. Mouth _be mine_ just below their ear as he slides his hands under their shirt so he can feel muscles tensing in a desperate battle to keep control. _Be mine, and I’ll be yours,_ kissed in to the line of their jaw.

But he doesn’t, because it’s Otabek. And for reasons that are still unbeknownst to him, Yuri wants more than just sex. Wants more than the friendship- if they even still have a friendship now- that they share, too. Maybe he always has.

 _How pathetic_ , he sneers at himself in the mirror, and then sniffs wetly. _What’s happened to you, Plisetsky?_

The leather slips from his shoulders and pools around his feet, and Yuri steps into the water.

*

Beka’s not there when he peers out from around the door. A towel hangs loosely around his waist, long hair dripping cold trails down his back. Bathing has given him time to recollect his thoughts, to dwell on all the details he’d let slip in his momentary panic.

Details like the MacBook. The pictures. He knows what ones they were. How absolutely filthy they are. How incredible he looks in all of them. They were sent with one purpose in mind- to get someone off. Yuri can’t blame Otabek for having a pair of eyes and libido. And seeing him there, with dried come on his abs, passed out in _Yuri’s_ bed- no one could blame him, either, for being instantly turned on.

At least, that’s how he’s trying to reason with himself. Really, he’s nervously chewing his lip as he takes a tee from Otabek’s bag and slips it on, and steals a pair of boxers too. He’s not ready to go back to his room- even if Beka’s not there, the ghost of fresh memories haunt those four walls.

Exhaustion bites at his bones like scavenger dogs. How long had it been since he’d slept? A day, maybe more. He hadn’t been able to settle the night before, too keyed up in anticipation of the next day’s events to drift off into unconsciousness. The hotel sheets had snared his legs as he tossed and turned, as he periodically glanced at his phone screen, at the picture of Beka and him together. As an unexplainable guilt gnawed at his insides at seeing Beka’s rare full smile. Knowing he was in the same time zone had been torture. Knowing he’d come to St Petersburg, for _Yuri_ , when his own boyfriend wouldn’t do the same, smothered him as if he were buried alive.

So he lets himself sink into the exhaustion. A comfy stack of pillows has his name, and clumps of cat hair, all over them. The felines in question are curled upon them, the soft twinkle of fairy lights scattering sleek shadows across their fur.

And then there’s Beka.

He’s walking down the hallway towards him in nothing but a pair of jeans- and he’s so damn beautiful it makes Yuri’s throat clench. Before they can acknowledge each other, Yuri ducks his head and turns away, taking a deep, shuddering breath before crawling into the canopy.

He’s not hiding. He _isn’t_. He can still see Beka pad to his belongings, even if he’s watching through gossamer curtains and the gaps between his fingers. Can still see the thick muscles in his back work as he crouches and starts shuffling through his clothes, as he stretches his arms above his head when he stands, making the dimples at the base of his spine look positively delectable.

And then he’s gone, heading towards the bathroom, and Yuri lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Tiny pinpricks of pain spread through his thigh, and he hisses down at Mishka, who’s kneading his flesh with needle sharp claws. He scoops the kitten up into his arms and collapses onto his back, staring up at the peak of the canopy, where stars hang from silver strings and dance in the faint draft from the old windows. Petting Mishka’s silken coat is a comfort he’s missed dearly, and soon he’s lulled into near sleep with the repetitive motions.

Maybe he drifts off. It wouldn’t be surprising if he did, but time flows like treacle in moments alone, thick and so dark, you can’t see through it clearly. Maybe that’s why Beka’s return is such a surprise, flushed rose gold from hot water with harsh scratches all over his abdomen as he stands over him.

Yuri blinks up slowly, and opens his mouth to say something- but what is there he can say? _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry but I think I might be in love with you._ Just hearing the words in the secrecy of his own mind makes Yuri shudder and glance away, pressing his face into his pillow. Even that simple action mocks him, though, for the fabric holds the scent of Beka’s aftershave. Yuri hopes Otabek never discovered the bottle of Armani Code he keeps in his bedside drawer.

“Tea?” The syllable sounds severe as it slices through the silence. _So he wants to talk about it_. Yuri doesn’t know if that’s better than simply ignoring it, at least until the morning. Rest would clear their minds at least, would blur the sharp lines of the memories into something softer, something easier to handle. “Yura?”

 _No_. He’s not sure if he can. He’s not sure if he wants to know. “Yes.”

He’s so startled, he says the word again. It tastes like treachery on his tongue. The low rumble of the kettle gurgles from the kitchen. Yuri can hear Beka tapping his fingers against the countertop as he waits, the squeak of his bare feet on the lino as he goes to find two mugs. The cupboard door above the sink needs oiling- he’s been meaning to do it for so long now- and screeches as it opens. Two thuds on the counter, a hundred more from his racing heart as it pounds against his ribs.

“Green tea?”

“Yeah,” Yuri replies in a voice that sounds as if it’s been boxed away and collecting dust. He licks his dry lips and sits up, dropping Mishka onto the same cushion as Potya so she can curl around her larger counterpart.

Beka’s leaning against the countertop now, waiting for the tea to steep. Even from here, Yuri can see him in perfect clarity, a carving in solid bronze, covered in the insult that is grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Sweatpants that don’t leave much to the imagination at all.  Yuri’s already had a taster tonight of how large Beka’s dick is. The fact that he can clearly see the imprint of it through thick cotton makes his eyes widen, and then snap shut in an instant.

 _You need Jesus, Yuri Plisetsky._ Jesus, and a whole lot of alcohol. Yuri’s almost tempted to ask Beka to grab the vodka from the top of the fridge. A numb tongue and an even number mind would make the next half an hour go past as painlessly as possible. He knows he deserves it though, whatever awkwardness that’s about to ensue. It’s his fault this is happening, really, after all.

“So,” Beka mumbles, and Yuri stares down at the floor, at the battered feet with the same battle scars his own bear too. “That happened.”

He doesn’t look up when Beka sits next to him. Even if he did acknowledge him, even if he wanted to, he didn’t know what he could possibly say. What _could_ he say that would fix this? That could stitch up the seams of the friendship he’s just ripped apart? “Yura, please look at me.”

“No,” he croaks, throat squeezing around the syllable. Besides him, Otabek stiffens, and the guilt swirling in his gut lurches. “Please, Beka. Can you-” Can you go? But that would hurt more. “I need- I just need…”

What did he need? Space? But the idea of Otabek leaving, leaving _him_ when he felt like this, lost and alone, caused a different kind of nausea to stir in his stomach. Time? Every second that ticks away drums a new sense of fear through him, though. Every second is one closer to Beka leaving.

“Tell me, Yura. Tell me what you need.” A mug of tea is pressed into his hands, and Yuri wraps his hands around it, grateful for the warmth that spreads through his skin, for something to hold to stop his nails tearing up his palms.

 _You_. It’s the simplest answer. Right now he needs Beka, his best friend. He needs the person he’d call on Skype, ranting and raving about everything and nothing. He needs the sparse, yet insightful commentary he provided, his thoughtful outlook on Yuri’s problems. He wants to tell him all about Oskar, the relationship he hid from him for so long for no reason other than he didn’t want him to think he was ever second best to anyone.

Because he wasn’t. Isn’t.

Beka comes before everyone.

“I walked in on him fucking someone else. Some girl.” It’s easier to just spit it out- Yuri’s known for his brashness, after all. No more skirting around topics, no more hiding, no more lying to himself or to anyone else. Otabek’s knee brushes against his own as he shifts. “I know you know who I mean, Beka.”

Silence stretches out between them, broken eventually by Otabek taking a long sip of his tea. “I do. Oskar Ivanov.”

Hearing his name now, after everything, makes Yuri shudder.  “Yeah.”

Beka’s hand comes to rest on Yuri’s thigh, and after staring at it for a long while, Yuri tentatively rests his own on top, twining their fingers together. Instantly, he can feel Beka’s strength, strength Yuri’s always envied, seep through his skin, easing some of the doubt that clings to his mind.

“You can tell me about him, if you want,” Beka says, though through his usual monotone Yuri can tell the words pain him, can hear how choked they are in emotion that Otabek rarely lets show through his voice.

It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt them both, more than anything else that’s happened tonight. Reopening fresh wounds after they’ve started to heal isn’t ever going to be pleasant, and Beka’s never been able to watch Yuri suffer. Being there, next to him, whilst he takes a knife to his memories is going to hurt Otabek more than any physical wound.

“Are you…?”

“I’m sure,” he says, and Yuri finally turns to look at him. Jaw clenched, mouth set into a thin line, brow furrowed. Determination. He’s determined to get through this.

So Yuri takes a deep breath, leans his head against Beka’s shoulder, and begins.

*

This time, he starts from the beginning. At World’s, earlier this year, where he’d blown Oskar in a bathroom stall after Beka had stopped paying attention to him. Waking up the next morning in the wrong hotel room with a neck full of fresh hickies and a dull ache in his ass. He skips over the gory details, of course, but Beka isn’t stupid. He knows.

Sometimes, when Yuri glances up at him as he takes sips of tea, he can tell Beka wants to interrupt, to share his version of events. But he never does, the muscle in his jaw flickering as he traps his comments behind his teeth. Undeniable strength, once again. Yuri would’ve run his mouth by now.

“It was just sex at first,” Yuri says, cringing as he does. They talk about everything _but_ their sex lives, so this is new territory for him. Conversations have only ever gone as far as their preferences, and even then Beka hadn’t said much. _I don’t really think about it -_ which Yuri totally understood; Otabek had always been the kind of person to build something upon a connection. Imagining him having a one night stand felt wrong, not only because Yuri didn’t want to think about him having sex with anyone else.

“Every time he was in the city, he’d call. We’d get drinks, hook up, and he’d be gone the next morning.” It had hurt, the first time, stirring to find a cold bed with only the gift of a used condom left lying on his bedroom floor. Yuri’d never considered himself a romantic, but there was something so demoralising about waking up alone.

Subconsciously, he presses closer to Beka, wanting to feel the warmth of another that the memories depraved him of. A couple of deep breaths saturated with the scent of Otabek’s skin, and Yuri’s able to continue again. “Then one night, it changed.”

 _Be my boyfriend_ he had asked, right after coming across Yuri’s lower back. Sweaty and disoriented with an after-orgasm haze, all Yuri could do was murmur  _yes_ into the pillow, and slip away into the shower.

Maybe if he’d been alone, he’d have been able to think about it, to consider if he really wanted a relationship with a man who showed up one night and was gone by the next. Maybe the hot sting of water, or the steam cleansing his thoughts with every breath, would have allowed him to think straight. But he hadn’t been alone. A few minutes later, Oskar had joined him under the spray, and all his apprehensions were forgotten in favour of the hot mouth wrapped around his too sensitive dick.

Yuri shakes his head at his own foolishness, burying his face in the crook of Beka’s neck to hide the shameful blush he could feel burning his cheeks. Looking back at things now, when his mind wasn’t clouded with pleasure, or the thrill of having someone who wanted to call him theirs, Yuri could see all the signs, could see every single mistake he made. “I don’t know why I said yes. I don’t think I should have.”

Oskar had tried to make more of an effort, now that they were exclusive. One heated night of feverous fucking turned into long, lascivious weekends- and Yuri never woke up alone. When their plans were cancelled last minute, there was always gifts. Expensive gifts. Gucci bags and little blue boxes from Tiffany, always with amorous notes written on the back of business cards. He’d thought nothing of it, at the time, wearing whatever jewellery bought for him the next time they saw each other.

He knows better, now. He knows his affection was being bought.

Yuri’s tea has grown cold now, but he downs the rest of it to clear his throat. A loud sniffle takes both of them by surprise, and Yuri wipes his nose on the collar of Beka’s shirt as the empty mug is gently taken from his hands and set aside. “It wasn’t supposed to be serious. I still don’t really know how it happened.”

They’d argued endlessly, Yuri a volatile flame to the catalysts that were Oskar’s whiskey words. Fiery explosions that always ended in heated make-up sex, which in turn left the taste smouldering ashes on Yuri’s tongue. _You’re smothering me._ He’d only asked why their plans were cancelled. _You’re too needy._ Yuri was always left feeling clingy and childlike, and that in turn bruised his confidence. _I don’t need to tell you anything._

And whenever Yuri suggested they break it off, sick and tired of feeling like an inconvenience?  The sweet talk would come out. The tender touches, kisses that trailed down his throat, burning his tender skin. _Let’s just forget about it, yeah? Let’s just go to bed._

And they always did.

And Yuri would forget about everything, when there were lips pressed against his and a hand wrapped around himself. In the morning, when Oskar would leave, the door shutting behind him felt like snuffing out a fire, and finally the cloying clouds of smoke could clear from his mind. Everything felt cold, the bruises between his thighs hurt like heartache.

 _This isn’t what this is supposed to feel like,_ he’d whispered into Potya’s fur, pressing tear stained kisses into his fur. He wasn’t supposed to cry frustrated tears as soon as he was alone. _Maybe it’s the long distance,_ he’d try to convince himself.

After all, he always cried whenever Beka left.

“I didn’t know,” Beka says finally, when Yuri pauses for breath and lets the embarrassment settle in his stomach. “I didn’t know that you cried.”

All Yuri can do is shrug, not wanting to dwell on that particular confession, instead carrying on with his recounting. “I tried to make it work, to make us work.”

Things were better for a while. After careful consideration, he decided to confide in Mila, and her advice had been a much needed fresh of breath air that cast away the last straggling curls of smoke.

 _Every guy I’ve ever dated has been like that,_ she’d said, swirling a finger around the rim of her coffee mug. _Hot one minute, cold the next. You’ve just got to be patient, Yurochka. This is new. Relationships are new. Give it a few more weeks, and if things don’t improve, you know things aren’t going to work out._

He listened to her. Listened to her, despite the fact his mind was whispering _Beka wouldn’t do that to me._ And she was right. Things settled down, and through a new found love of phone sex, their relationship ignited into something Yuri finally felt comfortable with.

“And I was finally happy. I thought I was happy.” Being invited to visit Oskar in Moscow changed things. It wasn’t just sex, but gentle lovemaking, and it was everything Yuri had craved. Intimacy, closeness, being taken care of. It made everything feel like it was worth it.

“So when our sixth month anniversary came along, I thought I’d surprise him.” It was a spur of the moment decision, like that flight to Fukuoka. He hadn’t really thought it through, just packed a bag and told Yakov he was going out of town for a couple of days. There were still angry unopened voicemails, missed calls, unread messages, but none of it seemed to matter in comparison to how surprised Oskar would look when he showed up outside his door.

“I stayed at a hotel the first night, and visited _Dedushka_ .” The old man had been shocked to see his beloved Grandson on his doorstep, had made him Piroshki whilst scolding him for his impulsiveness. _I’m just here for some sponsorship meetings,_ he’d said after one too many glances over the top of the daily paper. Like Otabek, Yuri could read his grandfather like a book, so he saw the slight shake of his head in disbelief before the old man could school his expression in neutrality.

“And then the next day- _today-_ I went to his apartment.” It’s one of those high end, fancy places, with a code to get in instead of a key- a code Yuri knew. _In case you’re ever in town, Princess- 4809._ He’d found the note in his suitcase, the night after he came back from Moscow. He hadn’t thought twice about using it to get into Oskar’s place. The plan was to slip in and strip off. Thigh highs and a thong, a pair of stilettos to make his legs look long.

“I got undressed. I knew he was home because his stupid fucking Rolex was on the kitchen counter. And then I went looking for him.” He went to the study first. In his fantasies, Oskar would be working at his desk, back to the door, and Yuri would run his hands down his shoulders, whisper _miss me?_ and and sit himself in Oskar’s lap. But he wasn’t there, and after moving on to the master bedroom, he couldn’t find Oskar there either.

“Then I heard it. Moans. Female moans.” Coming from the ensuite, with the door cracked open. Yuri’s heart had been in his throat as he crept closer, as he pushed against the wood to find a woman- a blonde woman- bent over the sink. A hand was knotted into her hair, the other caressing her breasts, bouncing as someone pounded into her from behind. _Oskar_ pounded into her from behind.

He’d barely been able to swallow the sob as he backed away, stumbling over something in his haste. Shoes- expensive shoes. The shoes he’d come back home in. They were easily replaceable, after all, for a man with so much money.

“I got dressed. I put her shoes on, and took a picture of myself in them in the mirror by the front door, and I posted it on Instagram.” Yuri laughs now, wetly, because tears have been steadily falling down his face since he’s started speaking. “I don’t know if he’s seen it, yet. I got back to the hotel, cried in the bathroom and trashed my phone.”

He’s been talking for a good twenty minutes, so when he stops, the silence that follows is deafening. Potya’s in his lap now, and one hand works through his fur whilst the other one remains twined with Beka’s. After everything he’s just confessed, the hardest part isn’t over with yet. He’d made a decision, about halfway through when Beka’d pressed a kiss to his temple as he’d hiccuped over his own words.

“And do you know what the funny thing about all of this is, Beka?” he says, looking up at him from under damp eyelashes. Everything is about to change. Everything’s about to change, and Yuri’s so so scared, but he has to say it. He can’t live with himself any longer if he doesn’t. “The funny thing is, all of this only happened because I didn’t know how to tell you that I love you.”

The body beneath his cheek stiffens.

Summoning the last dregs of his courage,  Yuri shoos Potya away, Mishka following and nipping at the older cat’s ankles, and moves so that he’s straddling Beka’s legs. It’s a position they’ve been in countless times before, in more innocent a situation, familiar and foreign synchronously. Beka’s hands fall to rest on his thighs, and finally, _finally_ , Yuri risks a glance up into the other’s eyes.

 _Warm_. Beka’s eyes are always so warm, but now they’re practically smouldering, pupils like enkindled coals that burn a hole through Yuri’s heart. His breath catches in his throat as the hard set line of his mouth parts, and then twists into the most beautiful smile. Yuri’s smile, the one he’s only ever seen when it’s just the two of him, his favourite secret.

“Say it again,” Otabek says. Yuri trails a shaking hand up Beka’s bare chest, leaving it to rest over his heart. The pulse flutters beneath his palm, fragile, like the wings of a baby bird. In that moment, Yuri promises he’ll never hurt Otabek, never hurt him how he’s been hurt.

“I love you,” he says, because it’s true, and after years of holding back and hiding how he’d felt, it’s the easiest thing to roll off his tongue. He says it again, because he can, and he loves how the words colour Beka’s cheeks the softest shade of pink, and again as fingers scratch against his scalp, tilting his head just so.

It feels like coming home, finally pressing their lips together after all this time spent pining. Otabek kisses him slowly, sweetly, and Yuri’s eyes flicker shut as he leans in, as he wraps his arms around Beka’s neck and presses in closer. They take their time learning the feel of each other’s mouth, memorising every detail of the moment that changed everything- and it’s amazing. Beka’s breath fanning over his breath feels amazing, the first touch of his tongue against his is amazing, the way he gently sucks on Yuri’s lower lip before breaking away is amazing. It’s everything he’s always imagined, in the lonesome minutes he allowed himself after midnight, half drunk on dreams and sleep. Everything, and more.

“Yura, my Yura,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to his chin, the tip of his nose, anywhere he can reach without breaking eye contact. He brings his hand so he cradling Yuri’s face, his thumb brushing over his cheekbones, and then the kiss-swollen swell of his cupid's bow. “I love you, too. So, so much.”

“You do?” He has to ask, because all of this is still so unbelievable to him, and Beka says _yes_ , in the space between his eyebrows, whispered against the corner of his mouth.

Yuri knocks him back so he’s lying on his back, large hands pushing up his shirt and encircling his waist. There’s something intimately beautiful about looking down at him, at bronze skin florid in the dim glow of fairy lights, like a masterpiece painted by Michelangelo himself. Smiling, Yuri leans down to capture Beka’s lips again, relishing in the soft sigh he swallows with the first sweep of his tongue.

“Do you know,” Beka says between kisses, because Yuri has to keep drawing away just to make sure this is real, “How long I’ve wanted to hear those words? To say them back to you?”

Yuri hums as Beka’s lips descended to his throat, the slight scrape of his teeth against his skin making him shudder with pleasure. Wanting more of their skin touching, Yuri yanks his shirt over his head, watching Beka’s pupils dilate as they focus on his bare chest.“How long?”

“Too long.”  Otabek pulls Yuri down to him, flips them over so their positions are reversed and kisses a feverish trail up his navel. “Forever.” Up to his chest, flushed pink and heaving, grazing his lips over one nipple before sinking back to observe Yuri much in the same manner he’d just regarded him. A single finger trails up his sternum, laying to rest in the hollow of his throat where his heart beats frantically. “Since the first time you stayed in Almaty.”

 _That- that was years ago!_ Yuri had been seventeen- he’d wanted to go the Summer after his senior debut but with the Olympic season looming, he hadn’t wanted to waste a single second of training. It had turned out in his favour- Yuri had become the youngest ever male figure skating champion. Nothing, not even Yakov’s complaints, could stop him from spending a fortnight in Almaty in Beka’s one bed apartment. A hot summer spent sharing sheets and smiles in the seclusion of a queen sized bed. Furrowing his brow, Yuri tries to pinpoint when exactly the realisation moment could have been. “That long?”

“That long. When you splashed around in that fountain by the mosque and got shouted at by security.” He smiles at the memory, of Beka apologising profusely in hasty Kazakh as Yuri pulled on his sneakers and wrung out his hair. He’d thought the red tinging Otabek’s cheeks had been embarrassment. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

“Three years,” Yuri mutters under his breath, back arching slightly as Otabek skims his hand over his pectorals before fiddling with the gold barbell pierced through his nipple. He moans, not able to stop himself as pleasure thrums through him, heading towards his dick that’s long since started stirring in interest. Noticing his half hardness, Beka ghosts his touch over the front of his underwear, the heat of his fingers through the cotton making Yuri’s toes curl.

“Three years,” Otabek repeats, before finally returning his attention to lavishing Yuri’s body with his mouth. Sloppy, open mouthed kisses are sucked into his skin, a wandering trail from his shoulder right back down to his chest. One, pebbled bud is taken between Otabek’s teeth, and Yuri rakes his fingers up Beka’s back, digging his nails into his deltoids. “There hasn’t ever been anyone else, Yura. There’s only been you. It’s only ever been you.”

It sounds like a confession, and glancing up from beneath heavy eyelids only confirms Yuri’s suspicions. There’s a sheepish glow to Beka’s face as he glances away, and it’s so incredibly endearing that Yuri forgets that Otabek’s just told him he’s never been with anyone else. He wants all of him, body and soul, forever and always, no matter their pasts and experiences.

“Touch me,” Yuri whines, rolling his hips up into Otabek’s. The fabric at the front of his sweatpants is tented, and Yuri wants nothing more than to reach below the waistband and finally take him into his hand. But he doesn’t want to take control, wants instead for Beka to take the lead, to fulfil whatever fantasies that have fuelled him for three years. “Beka, _please_.”

“God, Yura,” he groans, palming Yuri through his boxers. A noticeable wet patch mottles the fabric, and Yuri would be embarrassed if he weren’t so desperate for Beka to just take them off. “Seeing you like that earlier, it drove me insane.” A finger hooks into the elastic, teasing the fabric down Yuri’s hips. Brief kisses are placed over the the crests of his bones, and another over his belly button.  “And the pictures, my God, Yura.” He licks a long, hot strip just above the band, and Yuri shudders in anticipation. “You’re so beautiful. So, so beautiful.”

“Beka,” he whines again, because it’s the only thing he can do when his brain is consumed with thoughts of the man that holds him captive with his mouth and hands. Yuri can feel the heat of Beka’s breath seeping through the thin fabric that confines his straining erection, can feel it caressing the sensitive skin sensuously. The desirous need that courses through his veins is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, and his hips stutter up, wanting more than the balmy brush of his breath.

“What do you want, Yura?” he asks, gazing up at him with a half smile that would be arrogant on anyone else but him. Slowly, he runs his palms on the outsides of his thighs and hooks his hands behind his knees. Raising one leg, he presses kisses to Yuri’s calf, to the delicate bones of his ankle, the damages skin atop his feet, and back up again until he’s sucking bruises into the apex of his thigh. A moan escapes him as Otabek’s nose skims his swollen length, stopping only to lick the now obvious wet spot, before lavishing the same attention down his other leg.

“You,” Yuri gasps when he kind find the right mind to do so, with Beka’s mouth wrapped lightly around his toe which, _god,_ should be disgusting, yet Otabek makes it look so, _so_ sexy. “I want you.”

“You have me,” Beka says, crawling back up so his body covers Yuri’s. Their erections brush against each other, and Yuri’s back arches as he finds purchase in the muscles of Otabek’s shoulders. “You’ve always had me, Yura.”

When Otabek finally wraps his hand around his leaking dick, Yuri keens, bucking up into his fist. It’s tight, rough from the calluses that decorate Otabek’s fingers, and absolutely perfect, and Yuri’s breath hitches in his throat as Beka strokes him once, _twice_ , before letting go. Against his stomach, Yuri’s flushes dick twitches, and Otabek runs a single digit up the length, swirling it around the tip to collect the slickness gathering there, and back over the barbell piercing through his frenulum. The metal glistens in the dim light, glistens with saliva after Beka smoothes his tongue over it, coaxing carnal cries from deep with him.

When Yuri’s underwear is finally kicked off, Otabek takes a few long moments to simply stare at him. Dark eyes trail every inch of pale flesh, spit cinders over his skin in their intensity, and Yuri can feel his chest flushing red, can feel the heat blossoming in his cheeks so they’re rose too. And when Yuri’s patience runs out, when he too wants to stare and burn every detail of Otabek’s physique into his mind, he slips his fingers under the waistband of his sweats, and pushes them down Beka’s thighs.

He’s _big_. Yuri knew he would be, after the preview earlier, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready for the sight he beholds before him. Thick and throbbing, already slick at the tip, Otabek’s dick is just a beautiful as the rest of him. Yuri knows his eyes are bulging, knows how desperate he looks with parted lips, and he can’t refrain himself from reaching out, from scratching his nails through the dark curls at the base, or testing the weight of it in his hands. One, experimentative pump of hot velvet skin, and Beka’s groaning against Yuri’s throat, teeth sinking in almost painfully as his body shudders under Yuri’s touch.

“Don’t,” Beka gasps, when Yuri repeats the action, one agonisingly slow drag of the foreskin up and over the swollen head. “Not yet.”

It’s in that moment Yuri realises that this is surely the first time anyone else has touched Beka like this. He remembers his first time with someone else, in the changing rooms after one of Yakov’s training camps with a boy whose name might have started with I, but it could also have been an E. He’d lasted maybe four or five tugs before he was spilling all over his leotard, the feeling of another’s flesh touching him where only he’d explored before overwhelmingly raw and new.

So Yuri let’s go, licks his lip as Otabek’s erection springs back up against his stomach, and leans up to capture Beka’s bottom lip between his. They fall back against the pillows again, a tangle of teeth and tongue, the feel of their skin, all of their skin, a comfort Yuri never wants to deprive himself of ever again. And when Beka whispers _can I try something?_ Yuri just nods, and watches with wide eyes as Otabek sinks between his thighs, breath fanning over his perineum, and further down, over his hole.

The first touch comes as a surprise, a tentative kiss to his sac, and then the strip of skin just beneath. Instinctively, Yuri throws his legs over Otabek’s shoulders, lust darkening the depths of his eyes and causing his lips to fall open in wanton wonder. Thick fingers knead the muscles of Yuri’s ass, massaging and manipulating closer and closer to wear Yuri wants to be touched, but never close enough. When Beka glances up from the sight of him open and inexorably exposed, Yuri whines from the fervency of his gaze, the intensity of the love he feels in every brush of their skin.

And then finally, _thank God finally,_ Beka’s tongue circles the tight muscle of his rim, timidly at first. Yuri’s breath hitches at first contact, and he digs his heels into Beka’s back to urge him onwards. He repeats the action, a slow, torturous twirl around his entrance that makes Yuri quiver like the taut string of a bow.

“Beka,” Yuri moans, when he can’t take the teasing torment anymore. His bones are beginning to feel too big for his skin, a burning itch consuming each cell, the only promise of relief being his long-winded climax. Otabek pecks the juncture of his thigh, before licking a long line from his balls to his coccyx, humming against his hole when he comes back down again. In all his fantasies, Yuri never imagined him being such a fucking _tease_ , yet it’s hotter than anything his dreams could ever contrive.

With Yuri’s vocal approvable, Otabek’s confidence grows. Every swipe of his tongue simmers against his sensitised skin, and Yuri can feel every lick, every single flick inside of him. No one’s ever taken him apart with their mouth so thoroughly before, and as Otabek increases the pressure, as he breaches him in the most intimate of ways, Yuri’s fists are sinking into his sweaty curls, urging him deeper as he clenches uselessly around him.

He loves the way Otabek eases away to press sloppy, open mouthed kisses over his entrance, how he’ll peer up from beneath his lashes when a particularly loud moan escapes from Yuri’s slack mouth with the most angelic light dancing behind his eyes- an angelic light that’s counterbalanced with the absolutely _sinful_ things he’s doing, by the obscene sounds of him licking and sucking him ravenously. Whenever Yuri tries to wrap a hand around himself, to release the heat that’s burning between his legs, Otabek slaps him away, biting into his thigh with more playfulness than punishment, but with a pain that leaves him wanting more. Always more.

“I want to take care of you,” he says, lips swollen and shiny, saliva dripping down his chin. Something else presses against his hole now, a single finger seeking access. It slips in easily, his rim wet and worked open, and Yuri begs for a second straight away, desperate to feel fuller after being teased for so long. It’s perceptible that Otabek’s never done this before- Yuri can tell by his unsure movements inside him- and when Beka’s own efforts fail him, Yuri guides him on how to _really_ touch him, how to crook his fingers just right, how to massage the bundle of nerves until Yuri’s throwing his head against the pillows and cursing in whispered moans.

Beka begins to roam his lips over Yuri’s body again, murmuring dirty things into his sweaty skin. Every _beautiful_ and _pretty_ and _perfect_ drives him closer to the edge, every flick of his tongue over his nipples, every brush against his prostate. Yuri’s never truly come untouched before, but with tears in his eyes and an aching in his groin, he thinks he’s about to. It’s a surprise when his climax peaks- Beka’s breathing _I love you’s_ against his collarbones when his fingers go a little deeper, press a little harder, and he doesn’t even have time to cry out a warning before hot streaks of come shoot over his stomach.

Their lips crash together as Beka swallows the ghost of Yuri’s orgasm that escapes as a sigh, and then they’re lying facing each other, come cooling on Yuri’s stomach and softening dick, with Beka’s erection still evident between them. Deep throating may be something Yuri wants to try out on Beka, but he barely has the energy to keep his eyes open. Instead, he settles for smearing some of his ejaculate up Otabek’s length and jerking him with a loose grip. Beka pulls Yuri close, resting their foreheads together as his breathing grows erratic, and his thrusts stutter up into Yuri’s hand. The noise he makes when he comes is a gravelly grunt that sends aftershocks of pleasure to Yuri’s spent length, and Otabek kisses Yuri’s nose, his cheek, anywhere he can reach in his exhaustion as Yuri blinks tears from his eyes.

“Yura?” Otabek mumbles, and Yuri finds himself rubbing his face into Beka’s shoulder. Their embrace tightens as Yuri sniffs, hiding himself in the crook of Otabek’s neck as their come smears together on their stomachs. It should be sickening, but a primitive part of Yuri likes the fact that the evidence of their love is being smeared all over them.

“I just,” Yuri begins, throats hoarse and cracking. He breathes in the musky smell of sweat and sex, of sweet shampoo and the sharp tang of aftershave. He breathes in the scent of them, together. _Together_. Together and in love, like a page ripped out of the fantasies of his mind, and tries not to cry more than he already is. “I just love you, so much.”

The words still feel foreign on his tongue, but they also feel _right._ Nothing truer has ever spilt from Yuri Plisetsky’s mouth than declarations of love for Otabek Altin. He would say them, over and over again, if he weren’t so scared they’d lose their meaning, dulling something so pure and bright with overuse. Instead, he lays his hand over Beka’s heart, smiles sleepily as Otabek’s fingers twine with his own, and feels the strength of Otabek’s love through the pulse permeating his chest.

“ _Zhanym_ ,” Beka says, voice slurring with weariness. Yuri fumbles around until he can drape a discarded blanket over their naked bodies, and snuggles impossibly closer, basking in the warmth of Beka’s skin, and the way he fits perfectly under his chin. “We should clean up.”

“I’m good,” Yuri mumbles, rubbing a hand over his stomach and bringing it to his lips. Beka shudders when his tongue darts out to clean his fingers, muttering something unintelligible in Kazakh under his breath before rolling out from under the blanket.

The sight of Beka’s muscles working as he stands, his thick ass and narrow hips, powerful thighs and biceps that flex as he stretches, will never grow old to Yuri. He leans up on one hand and watches as Beka wanders to the bathroom, still unabashedly nude, and returns with a damp cloth and a brush because, yeah- now that he’s run a hand through it, Yuri’s hair is tangled from his writhing around against the pillows.

He allows Beka to take care of him, to scrub away the filth from his body, and carefully brush out the knots in his hair, to kiss him on the forehead and whisper _how beautiful_ he is as his nails scratch against his scalp. Really, Yuri’s too sated and sleepy to do anything but bathe in the afterglow, bathe in Beka’s undying affection, and drift on the cloud nine that Otabek has gifted him with.

Eventually, the cats return and curl up against Yuri’s naked body, on discarded clothes and the remnants of new memories. Yuri knows he should care more, but Beka’s there, on his other side, curled around him too. He’d refused to move from the canopy, so Beka had brought in all of the bedding from the bedroom, and the only way to accurately describe the tangle of linen, long hair and legs is a nest.

It’s everything Yuri’s ever wanted.

He almost doesn’t want to fall asleep, wants to remember the feeling of Beka’s arms around him forever, wants the memory of the first night of them, together, to stay fresh and untouched by slumber forever. But if there’s one thing Yuri’s sure of, this is the first night _of_ forever. Their forever, Beka and Yuri’s. There are many nights ahead of them: nights together and apart, nights spent discovering themselves as lovers, spent touching and talking, fucking and _feeling_.

So Yuri relents, lets sleep take over with his fingers laced in Beka’s hair and the shadow of a smile on his lips.

Because he can’t wait.

*

Sun bleeds through the thin curtains, burnt orange and burnished against Beka’s bronze skin. Yuri’s been awake for a while, head pillowed against Otabek’s shoulder as he traces whimsical patterns with his forefinger over his chest, in the light smattering of hair that covers his skin, as he studies Beka’s profile. He looks younger without the furrow to his brow, with his mouth slack and parted lacking its usual tightness. Stubble darkens his jaw, and Yuri tilts his head up so he can gently run his mouth over it, relishing in the sharp bite of the bristles against his skin.

He’s infatuated.

Even in sleep, Yuri could only dream of Beka- of his hands, his hard body moving against his, the honey sweet words that stick Yuri’s throat together in want. Being able to wake up and know that it wasn’t just a dream? That’s new. It’s new, and absolutely intoxicating. Yuri could get drunk on the sight of Beka beside him, neck stippled with fresh bruises of love bites and dishevelled curls he wants to finger comb back into place.

He resists the urge, instead shifting onto his back so he can stroke Potya’s fur. The older cat blinks warily up at him, eyes slitted and sly. After a few minutes, the ragdoll stretches, yawns, and arises to hunt down his food bowl, deeming it time for Yuri to feed him.

Covered in white fur, and Yuri’s discarded thong, is a journal. It’s plain black, and something Yuri’s only seen stashed in the pocket of Beka’s leather jacket, and he’s drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It’s _wrong_ , but everything the two of them did yesterday was wrong until it was right, so Yuri flips to a random page, and scans over it with curious eyes. It’s trivial stuff about training, written in Beka’s meticulous phrasing, but he spots his name at the bottom. _Call Yura. Ask about Mishka, and Mila’s birthday, and how baking her cake went. Ask Yura’s opinion on the green velour costume._ Simple little reminders that Yuri thinks nothing of- until he flips to the last page.

It’s _him_. _Yura_ , over and over again, in varying forms of franticness that influences his script. _Tell Yura how beautiful his hair is. Make Yura smiles so his nose wrinkles. Tell Yura you love him. Tell Yura you’ve always loved him. Make love to Yura. Suck Yura off._ It varies in its innocence and its intensity, and Yuri doesn’t know whether to feel flattered or flustered.

Potya cries from the entrance of the canopy, startling Yuri. When he goes to glare at the cat, he finds that Beka’s already awake, pushing hair away from his face, and before Yuri can hide his trespasses, he murmurs, “What are you doing?”

Yuri doesn’t want to lie, promised himself he’d never hide anything from Otabek again, so he sucks in a deep breath, hands the journal to him, and says, “I didn’t know you were such a sap. You hid it well all this time, y’know?”

Otabek blushes, and it’s so unabashedly beautiful, Yuri leans down to kiss him, ignoring the threat of morning breath in favour of the soft noise that hitches in the back of Beka’s throat when Yuri catches his bottom lip between his.

“You weren’t supposed to see it,” he admits when they part, where Yuri’s now shamelessly straddling him, groins pressed hips grinding ever so slightly together. Otabek’s hands automatically come to rest on Yuri’s ass like it’s the most natural thing in the world, rubbing circles into the flesh with his fingers. “Which one do you wanna do first, then?”

“That’s supposed to be my question,” Yuri complains, lightly slapping Otabek’s chest, then letting them rest against his warm skin. “Let’s start with _make Yura breakfast in bed_ , and then I can be _your_ breakfast in bed.”

“Yura,” he groans, but Yuri’s already laughing, rolling off of Otabek and dashing away from the hands that try and grab him to give the cats their breakfast.

“Get to it, chef,” Yuri says, slapping Beka’s ass when he joins him in the kitchen. This time, he isn’t quick enough to evade the hands that capture him, and he laughs into the kiss, letting Beka lift him onto the countertop and opening his legs for him to press closer.

Beka’s breakfast is served before Yuri’s- not that he can complain when he’s the one being sucked off. He watches contentedly from the sofa as Beka makes pancakes, scrolling through his fucked up phone, through Instagram, past the thousands of likes on his latest Instagram photo, ignoring the angry inbox messages and missed phone calls in favour of posting a new picture.

It’s a few minutes old. Beka had made them get dressed, but Yuri’s wearing his t-shirt and it hangs provocatively from one shoulder. The fact that they bear matching marks across their throats makes what they’d spent the night doing obvious, and Beka had protested the picture at first, but had succumbed in seconds at the thought of the whole world knowing that they were together.

Pieces of me, pieces of you, pieces of us @otabek-altin #foreverandalways

They’re kissing. It’s odd to see in picture proof, but there’s something about seeing them together, seeing how Beka’s hand look delicately curled into the nape of Yuri’s neck, how you can tell that they’re both smiling, that makes it real. Official. Instagram official, as news outlets around the world will coin later that day when the image spreads like wildfire.

“What does it mean?” Otabek asks as he hands a hot plate to Yuri, settling down next to him. Mishka’s woken up and is headbutting against their shins for a scrap of food, but Yuri’s attention is elsewhere.

It’s the five years of their friendship, and how Yuri’s life was bitterly cold without the warmth of Beka’s presence. It’s the hours of Skype calls, thousands of messages, the knowledge that someone was at the end of the phone, waiting for him unconditionally. It’s the strength Otabek has when Yuri doesn’t, when _dedushka’s_ in hospital, or he places below JJ, and the strength Yuri shows in return when Beka’s parents have been arguing, or when his rent goes up and he has to work overtime in clubs to afford it. It’s the unwavering support they provide each other, the _davais_ and the thumbs up, the shared hotel rooms and late nights spent talking when the should be resting for competitions.

It’s how last night had been five years in the making, and worth every endurance, every heartbreak Yuri’s faced. It’s how they had fit together so perfectly, like the only place in the world Yuri belonged to other than the ice was Beka’s side. It’s the feel of their first kiss, their first touch, their first shared orgasm, and it’ll be in all of those to come.  

So Yuri shrugs, because to him, the answer is obvious.

“It means that without you, there isn’t me.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we have it. My first ever completed WIP- can you believe it? 
> 
> Thank y'all so much for going on this journey with me. After everything with my mam, and all the emotions and metal issues that have followed it, I've discovered that this is what I really need, what I enjoy and what keeps me sane. Each of your comments have meant the world to me, and I've been shocked by the positive reactions and by the people that just get it- Voxane, I'm looking at you boo.
> 
> So plan of action from here:
> 
> I've got two zine pieces to finish, one with my darling Juju, and another, which is a smut piece, for the [ Otayuri Seasons Zine](https://otayuriseasonszine.tumblr.com/)  
> , both of which are exclusives. If any of y'all are interested and want to support us, please visit the Otayuri Seasons tumblr for more information.
> 
> I've got one secret santa piece to finish too, and that will be posted here on Ao3 on the 6th of January of before.
> 
> I've started working on the next chapter of Summer On Your Skin, because inspiration hit at the weirdest of times, so hopefully, that will be updated too after half a year. 
> 
> Spark will then be my full priority. I'm considering maybe writing a good couple of chapters before I start posting again, but I hate making y'all wait. But what I've learnt from writing pieces, is that it's so much easier and freeing to have something fully written before posting. I'll debate it a little more, but I think that might be what is best. We'll see.
> 
> And finally, I have also been playing with a couple of ideas for a continuation of this fic, about being in a new relationship, and jealousy and possessiveness and overcoming problems, with a few first times thrown in between. If this is something y'all'd be interested in, let me know! It'd be interesting to go back to Beka and his obsessive ways, and seeing how he'd deal with being in a long-distance relationship.
> 
> Finally, thank you again. I can't believe I did this, I'm still sat here in shock. 
> 
> [ catch me @ zeldaismyhomegirl if you wanna talk or find out what I'm doing next](http://zeldaismyhomegirl.tumblr.com/)  
> Y'all can also follow me on twitter [ @ItsCatAvalon](http://twitter.com/ItsCatAvalon)  
> See y'all next level,
> 
> xoxo Cat


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